/, 


SHORT    STUDIES    IN 
PARTY    POLITICS 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

From  a  rare  photograph  in  the  possession  of  Noah  Brooks.     (Only  five 
copies  were  printed  from  this  negative.) 


SHORT    STUDIES    IN 
PARTY   POLITICS 


BY 

NOAH   BROOKS 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1895 


COPYRIGHT,  1895,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


TROW  DIRECTORY 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMPANY 


LIST    OF    PORTRAITS 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,        .....      Frontispiece 

PAGE 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON, 7 

JOHN  ADAMS, 15 

AARON  BURR, 23 

ALEXANDER  HAMILTON, 33 

THOMAS  JEFFERSON,    .......        43 

JOHN  JAY,      .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .        -51 

JAMES  MADISON, 59 

GEORGE  CLINTON,  ........     65 

JAMES  MONROE,  ........         73 

JOHN  C.  CALHOUN, 81 

HENRY  CLAY, 89 

JOHN  RANDOLPH, 101 

JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS, 109 

JOHN  P.  HALE, 115 

MARTIN  VAN  BUREN, 121 

ZACHARY  TAYLOR, 125 


vi  LIST   OF   PORTRAITS 

PAGE 

ANDREW  JACKSON, 131 

DANIEL  WEBSTER,  . 137 

WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD,         ...         ...  143 

WILLIAM  HENRY  HARRISON,  .        .      .  .        .        .        .  149 

MlLLARD    FlLLMORE,      . 153 

JOHN  TYLER, 161 

FRANKLIN  PIERCE, •       167 

JAMES  K.  POLK, i?5 

JAMES  BUCHANAN, 183 

THURLOW  WEED,   .         .         .         .        •        •         •        .191 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I.  SOME  FIRST  THINGS  IN  AMERICAN  POLITICS,  .          i 

II.  THE  PASSING  OF  THE  WHIGS,        .        .        .  .63 

III.  WHEN  SLAVERY  WENT  OUT  OF  POLITICS,  .  .       113 

IV.  THE  PARTY  PLATFORMS  OF  SIXTY  YEARS,    .  .172 


SHORT  STUDIES  IN  PARTY  POLITICS 


SOME   FIRST   THINGS    IN    AMERICAN    POLITICS 

THE  student  of  American  politics  must 
needs  notice  the  great  influence  which 
questions  growing  out  of  our  foreign 
relations  exerted  in  the  political  affairs  of 
the  young  republic.  After  we  had  achieved 
our  independence  and  were  yet  struggling 
to  get  upon  our  feet,  political  parties  were 
divided,  not  only  by  the  question  of  the 
adoption  or  rejection  of  the  newly  framed 
Constitution,  but  by  their  friendship  for,  or 
their  hostility  to,  certain  foreign  nations  with 
which  we  were  forced  to  have  more  or  less 
close  political  and  commercial  relations.  In- 
deed, there  was  a  time  when  the  Federalists 
were  stigmatized  as  being  pro-English,  and 
the  Anti-Federalists  were  "  more  French  than 
the  Frenchmen,"  although  not  a  man  among 
them  could  speak  a  word  of  the  French  lan- 
guage. 

From  the  end  of  the  Revolution  to  the  be- 


SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

ginning  of  Andrew  Jackson's  administration, 
let  us  say,  foreign  questions  cut  a  bigger  fig- 
ure in  our  domestic  politics  than  they  ever 
have  since,  although  the  primary  develop- 
ment of  parties  was  along  the  lines  of  the 
debate  that  sprung  up  as  soon  as  the  new 
Constitution  was  submitted  to  the  several 
States  for  approval.  The  names  of  Whig 
and  Tory,  so  freely  bandied  during  and  im- 
mediately after  the  War  for  Independence, 
lost  their  significance  when  the  war  was 
over  and  the  Cowboys  had  been  hanged  and 
the  more  pestilent  of  the  Tories  had  been 
expelled  from  the  country  whose  successful 
rebellion  had  disappointed  their  hopes.  Be- 
fore we  rail  at  the  Anti-Federalists  for  their 
lack  of  patriotism  in  opposing  the  adoption 
of  the  "  Gilded  Trap,"  or  "  New  Roof,"-  as 
they  called  the  present  palladium  of  our  lib- 
erties, we  should  recall  the  fact  that  that 
wonderful  instrument  was  as  yet  an  experi- 
ment, and  the  system  of  government  pro- 
posed under  it  was  a  novelty  upon  the  face 
of  the  earth. 

With  that  delightful  independence  of  judg- 
ment which  is  one  of  the  legitimate  charac- 
teristics of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  our  forefa- 
thers, the  founders  of  the  republic,  insisted 
that  the  new  Constitution  was  a  thing  of 


FIRST  THINGS   IN  AMERICAN   POLITICS        3 

shreds  and  patches,  and  would  be  a  fruitful 
source  of  abuses ;  or  they  extolled  it  as  the 
sum  of  human  wisdom  and  the  only  rock  of 
salvation.  It  is  not  certain  that  the  papers 
now  known  as  "  The  Federalist "  (the  larger 
number  of  which  were  written  by  Alexander 
Hamilton  for  the  purpose  of  convincing  men 
that  the  new  Constitution  was  worthy  of 
adoption)  were  greatly  influential  in  secur- 
ing the  end  for  which  they  were  written  ; 
but  those  papers,  if  they  did  not  convince 
the  Anti-Federalists,  have  survived  unto  this 
day  to  interpret  for  us  the  Federal  Consti- 
tution. They  were  chiefly  written  by  men 
who  helped  to  frame  the  fundamental  law  of 
the  republic. 

When  the  Federal  Constitution  had  been 
finally  adopted,  party  lines  were  drawn  be- 
tween those  who  favored  a  strict  construc- 
tion of  its  provisions  and  a  large  predomi- 
nance for  the  reserved  rights  of  the  States, 
and  those  who  demanded  a  loose,  or  liberal, 
construction  of  that  instrument  and  a  some- 
what centralized  national  government.  The 
Anti-Federalists  would  have  said,  "  The  Unit- 
ed States  are,"  and  the  Federalists  would 
have  used  the  form,  "  The  United  States  is." 
Alexander  Hamilton  was  the  leader  of  the 
Federalists.  Thomas  Jefferson  became  the 


4  SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

chief,  the  apostle  of  the  party  opposed  to  a 
strong  and  centralized  government.  Both  of 
these  men,  so  unalterably  differing  with  each 
other's  views,  were  members  of  Washing- 
ton's cabinet.  In  like  manner,  Lincoln,  in 
later  years,  framed  his  cabinet  to  include 
non-assimilable  elements  and  named  his  coun- 
cil "  The  Happy  Family." 

But  the  time  came  when  Hamilton,  with 
his  talent  for  management,  was  able  to  se- 
cure the  aid  of  Jefferson  in  his  famous  "  log- 
rolling" scheme  by  which  his  own  darling 
financial  projects  were  accepted  by  Con- 
gress ;  Jefferson's  friends  voted  for  those 
propositions  in  return  for  the  location  of  the 
national  capital  on  the  banks  of  the  Poto- 
mac. Congressmen  of  a  later  day  and  gener- 
ation, who  exchange  votes  as  pioneer  Ameri- 
can builders  "  changed  work,"  may  console 
themselves  with  the  reflection  that  the  pio- 
neers of  American  politics  did  precisely  the 
same  thing  when  "  log  -  rolling  "  was  one  of 
the  first  inventions  in  Congress. 

Later  on,  it  was  the  Federalists  who  were 
most  forward  in  plans  and  schemes  for  build- 
ing the  capital  by  such  aids  as  lotteries  and 
loans ;  and  it  was  the  duty  of  the  Anti-Feder- 
alists to  cry  out  "  why  did  a  Government 
loaded  down  with  a  debt  of  seventy  millions 


FIRST  THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS         5 

plunge  the  citizens  into  this  bottomless  pit  of 
lotteries  and  architecture  ?  "  In  the  intem- 
perate language  of  the  time,  it  was  openly 
charged  that  votes  were  influenced  in  Con- 
gress by  the  holding  of  certificates  of  indebt- 
edness made  valuable  by  the  funding  bill  of 
Hamilton  ;  and  much  of  the  political  talk  of 
the  time,  whether  Federalist  or  Anti-Federal- 
ist, resembled  that  of  our  own  day,  although 
it  was  certainly  more  acrimonious  and  un- 
charitable than  anything  that  the  present 
generation  has  ever  known.  Even  so  elegant 
a  gentleman  and  sincere  a  patriot  as  William 
Maclay,  then  a  senator  from  Pennsylvania, 
stanch  Anti-Federalist  that  he  was,  could  set 
down  in  his  diary  that  he  considered  Presi- 
dent Washington  to  be  "  playing  a  game  "  in 
what  he  regarded  as  a  disreputable  business ; 
and  Maclay,  working  himself  up  to  a  high 
pitch  of  indignation,  finally  declared  that 
"  the  President  has  become,  in  the  hands  of 
Hamilton,  the  dishclout  of  every  dirty  spec- 
ulation, as  his  name  goes  to  wipe  away  blame 
and  silence  all  murmuring." 

Federalists  and  Anti  -  Federalists  divided 
again,  naturally  enough,  on  the  propositions 
to  levy  an  excise  on  certain  articles  of  domes- 
tic production  and  to  establish  a  National 
Bank.  The  necessity  of  collecting  a  tariff  on 


6  SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

foreign  goods  imported  was  early  recognized  ; 
and  when  James  Madison  introduced  in  the 
First  Congress  the  first  tariff  bill,  the  commo- 
tion that  ensued  was  caused  not  so  much  by 
opposition  to  the  measure  as  by  those  "  shrieks 
of  locality  "  which  have  never  since  ceased  in 
the  National  Congress.  Although  there  was 
some  difference  of  opinion  among  the  states- 
men of  the  time  as  to  the  expediency  of 
framing  the  Impost  Bill  so  as  to  protect 
American  manufactures,  the  "  claims  "  of  the 
States  for  favors  to  be  granted  by  the  bill 
made  more  noise  than  all  the  other  causes  of 
the  hot  debate  combined.  Hamilton's  famous 
report  on  manufactures,  then  sent  to  Con- 
gress, was  the  first  argument  in  favor  of  the 
policy  of  protection,  and  is  still  entitled  to 
respect  in  these  later  days.  And  it  is  fair  to 
say  that  the  chief  opposition  to  the  protec- 
tive principle  and  to  the  Impost  Bill  came 
from  men  who  hated  Hamilton  because  they 
hated  a  Federalist. 

Nor  was  the  charge  that  men  vote  in  Con- 
gress in  a  way  to  subserve  their  own  private 
interests  left  to  be  invented  by  those  who,  in 
this  year  of  grace,  take  this  means  to  harass 
their  political  foes.  While  the  Impost  Bill 
was  pending  in  Congress,  it  was  alleged  that 
sundry  members  hindered  its  progress  in  or- 


GEORGE   WASHINGTON. 
From  a  picture  by  Gilbert  Stuart.    (The  Gibbs  Portrait.) 


FIRST   THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS        9 

der  that  importers  might  hurry  in  their  duti- 
able cargoes  ;  and  the  good  Maclay  records 
his  suspicion,  well-nigh  belief,  that  one  of  his 
colleagues  in  the  Pennsylvania  delegation  in 
Congress  was  doing  his  best  to  hinder  the 
passage  of  the  bill  in  order  that  his  own  In- 
diamen  might  get  in  with  their  cargoes  be- 
fore the  tariff  should  become  operative. 

Again,  in  1791,  when  Hamilton  proposed 
his  scheme  for  a  National  Bank,  party  fury 
ran  high  over  domestic  questions.  Once 
more  the  extent  of  the  Federal  powers  and 
the  expediency  of  their  exercise  were  debated 
with  great  heat  and  acrimony.  This  was  not 
a  national  banking  system  that  was  planned, 
but  a  bank  which  should  be  the  financial 
agent  of  the  Government.  The  Federalists, 
regarding  the  collection  of  the  revenues  as 
one  of  the  necessary  functions  of  the  Gov- 
ernment, urged  that  Congress  might  consti- 
tutionally charter  a  bank  for  that  purpose ; 
and  the  Anti-Federalists,  while  they  were  will- 
ing to  admit  that  such  a  bank  would  be  a 
great  public  convenience,  insisted  that  it  was 
not  absolutely  needed;  and  therefore,  they 
said,  it  would  not  be  lawful.  This  subtle  hair- 
splitting, sophistical  though  it  may  appear, 
really  opened  a  conflict  of  opinion  which 
lasted  for  more  than  a  half-century,  and  dur- 


10        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

ing  the  administration  of  Andrew  Jackson 
raged  with  prodigious  heat.  Nevertheless, 
although  the  National  Bank  issue  was  fought 
over  with  a  closer  and  yet  closer  drawing  of 
the  lines  of  Federalist  and  Anti-Federalist,  it 
was  evident  that  the  time  had  come  for  the 
choice  of  a  new  name  for  the  party  in  opposi- 
tion. The  Constitution  having  been  adopted, 
and  all  of  Hamilton's  financial  projects  hav- 
ing been  carried,  the  questions  that  had  agi- 
tated the  strict  constructionists  and  the  loose 
constructionists  were  in  a  fair  way  to  a  set- 
tlement that  might  be  regarded  as  perma- 
nent. New  issues  demanded  a  new  title  for 
the  party. 

Jefferson,  returning  from  a  long  sojourn 
in  France,  and  deeply  imbued  with  the  most 
fantastic  and  radical  notions  of  democracy 
and  the  rights  of  men,  had  been  rewarded 
with  a  place  in  the  cabinet ;  the  French 
Revolution  had  rolled  to  its  highest  tide  the 
theory  and  practice  of  popular  government ; 
and,  now  that  domestic  questions  were  not 
so  imminent,  the  American  people  were  in- 
vited to  consider  their  relations  to  the  strug- 
gles of  other  nations  for  liberty  and  equality. 
Sympathizing  with  the  French  in  their  re- 
publican excesses  and  hating  the  English 
with  virulence,  Jefferson  gave  the  party  of 


FIRST  THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS      I  I 

which  he  became  the  acknowledged  head 
the  name  of  Democraticj^Republican.  The 
first  member  ofThls~compound  title  was  soon 
dropped,  and  we  must  hereafter  know  the 
Anti  -  Federalists  as  Republicans.  Before 
this,  however,  rival  factions  in  Pennsylvania 
were  known  as  Constitutionalists  and  Repub- 
licans. 

Heretofore  the  Anti-Federalists  had  been 
divided  into  several  separate  squads.  Now, 
under  Jefferson's  management,  they  were 
welded  into  one  homogeneous  mass,  and  al- 
though the  Federalists  had  managed,  while 
their  adversaries  were  not  united,  to  get 
possession  of  and  hold  both  branches  of  Con- 
gress, the  Federal  Judiciary,  and  most  of  the 
State  Legislatures,  the  newly  baptized  Re- 
publican party  was  being  organized  for  vic- 
tory. Washington  was  first  called  to  the  chair 
by  acclamation.  Before  his  second  election 
came  on,  party  divisions  began  to  show 
themselves  in  his  cabinet,  and  the  Arcadian 
simplicity  of  American  politics  forever  dis- 
appeared. Henceforth  there  was  to  be  no 
unanimity  in  anything  that  could  be  lugged 
into  politics ;  a  readiness  to  make  "  a  live 
issue "  of  everything  possible  replaced  the 
patriotic  unity  that  had  held  the  people  to- 
gether while  they  had  been  threatened  by 


12        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

the  total  destruction  of  their  liberties.  Polit- 
ical parties  were  born. 

The  quarrels  of  Jefferson  and  Hamilton, 
grievous  as  they  were  to  their  illustrious 
chief,  were  the  natural  result  of  this  new 
formation  of  parties.  Personally  antagonized 
although  the  two  cabinet  officers  had  been, 
("  pitted  against  each  other  like  game-cocks," 
Jefferson  had  said),  their  separation  on  party 
lines  was  logical  and  inevitable.  It  was  lam- 
entable that  one  of  the  first  evidences  of 
party  development  was  seen  in  the  wicked 
and  mendacious  attacks  upon  the  personal 
character  of  Washington,  who  was  a  Feder- 
alist although  he  does  not  appear  to  have 
known  it.  At  first  these  attacks  were  ob- 
lique. Vice-President  John  Adams,  who  was 
a  candidate  for  re-election  when  the  time 
for  another  election  drew  near,  was  roundly 
abused  for  his  coldness,  his  hauteur,  his 
aristocratic  equipage  and  monarchical  ten- 
dencies, and  his  stately  affectations.  Many 
Anti-Federalists  privately  said  that  all  this 
was  true  of  Washington.  And  the  violent 
language  applied  by  these  men  to  Hamilton, 
Washington's  favorite  and  nearest  friend, 
were  disguised  assaults  upon  the  illustrious 
First  President. 

But  notwithstanding  these  partisan  differ- 


FIRST  THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS      13 

ences,  no  name  but  that  of  Washington  was 
mentioned  when  the  presidential  succession 
was  under  discussion.  And  now,  for  the 
first  time,  Congress  busied  itself  with  laws 
regulating  the  method  of  collecting  and 
counting  the  votes  of  the  Presidential  Elec- 
tors. As  yet  there  were  no  formal  nomina- 
tions, no  political  conventions,  no  caucuses 
in  Congress,  no  campaign  committees,  and, 
above  all,  no  windy  political  platforms,  nor, 
indeed,  platforms  of  any  kind.  Both  parties 
being  agreed  upon  the  nomination  of  Wash- 
ington, they  divided  upon  the  nominations 
for  Vice-President.  The  Republicans  would 
have  supported  Jefferson  for  Vice-President ; 
but  the  Constitution  forbade  the  selection 
of  President  and  Vice-President  from  the 
same  State,  and,  forsaking  the  great  supply 
of  "  presidential  timber  "  which  the  Mother 
of  Presidents  was  ready  to  furnish,  they 
named  George  Clinton,  of  New  York;  the 
Federalists  adhered  to  John  Adams.  It  was 
a  curiously  free  -  and  -  easy  method,  that  by 
which  the  Presidential  Electors  were  chosen. 
The  theory  of  an  election  by  a  free  choice  of 
the  Electoral  College  was  still  maintained  ; 
not  a  man  of  the  whole  number  of  electors 
was  pledged  to  vote  for  any  specified  candi- 
date. Nor  was  it  required  of  them  that  they 


14        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

should  indicate  their  choice  for  President 
and  Vice-President.  Each  elector  was  to 
cast  his  ballot  for  two  men ;  and  the  man 
who  stood  at  the  top  of  the  poll  was  to  be 
President ;  the  next  below  him  was  to  be 
Vice-President.  The  manner  of  choosing 
electors  in  the  several  States  was  various ; 
they  were  chosen  by  the  people,  or  by  the 
legislatures  ;  on  a  general  ticket,  or  by  voters 
in  districts ;  or  by  a  combination  of  these 
several  methods,  as  wisdom  and  whim  might 
dictate.  In  many  of  the  States,  perhaps  in 
most  of  them,  the  people  really  had  nothing 
to  do  with  the  selection  of  the  Presidential 
Electors  except  so  far  as  their  voice  was 
heard  through  the  few  newspapers  of  the 
time. 

The  second  national  election  took  place  in 
November,  1792,  and  the  canvass  of  the 
votes  of  the  Presidential  Electors,  which 
was  had  in  February  of  the  following  year, 
showed  that  every  one  of  them  (and  there 
were  one  hundred  and  thirty-two),  had  voted 
for  George  Washington.  In  the  election  for 
Vice-President  the  Federalists  triumphed. 
John  Adams  had  seventy  -  seven  votes ; 
George  Clinton,  fifty ;  Thomas  Jefferson, 
four ;  and  Aaron  Burr,  one.  The  election 
returns  came  in  from  the  States  with  exceed- 


JOHN    ADAMS. 

From  a  copy  by  Jane  Stuart,  about  1874,  of  a  painting  by  her  father,  Gil- 
bert Stuart,  about  1800 — in  the  possession  of  Henry  Adams. 


FIRST   THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS      I/ 

ing  slowness.  Although  the  general  result 
was  early  known,  the  vote  of  Kentucky  was 
not  heard  from  until  January,  1793. 

This  election  over,  the  attention  of  the 
American  people  was  once  more  diverted  to 
foreign  matters  and  to  the  effect  which  was 
produced  upon  their  own  politics  by  com- 
motions on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
The  sympathy  which  Federalists  had  at  first 
felt  for  the  French  Republicans  had  visibly 
cooled  during  the  mad  saturnalia  that  pre- 
vailed after  the  execution  of  Louis  XVI.;  but 
that  of  the  American  Republicans  had  now 
risen  to  a  fever  heat.  In  all  the  chief  centres 
of  population  there  was  manifested  some- 
thing like  a  rage  for  whatever  was  French, 
and,  more  especially,  for  whatever  was  sug- 
gestive of  the  prevailing  temper  of  the  French 
people.  Whatever  was  distasteful  to  the 
Parisian  Reds  was  hateful  to  American  Re- 
publicans ;  and,  if  we  may  judge  by  the 
universality  of  this  popular  craze,  the  Re- 
publicans were  now  in  a  majority.  Men 
and  women  were  called  "  Citizen  "  and  "  Cit- 
izeness,"  and  every  fantastic  notion  of  the 
mob  that  ruled  Paris  was  taken  up  here  and 
adopted  with  glad  acclaim  as  eminently  fit 
and  proper  for  the  usage  of  the  citizens  of 
the  American  republic. 


1 8        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

When  France  declared  war  against  Eng- 
land, Spain,  and  Holland,  the  excitement 
of  the  Republicans  knew  no  bounds;  their 
hated  enemy,  England,  was  now  to  be  swept 
from  the  seas,  and  Washington's  proclama- 
tion of  neutrality  was  the  signal  for  the  out- 
burst of  a  long -slumbering  magazine  of 
hatred  and  discontent.  The  extraordinary 
performances  of  Citizen  Genet,  the  newly 
arrived  French  Minister,  in  1793,  added  fuel 
to  the  flames.  Jefferson,  who  was  still  Secre- 
tary of  State,  was  doubtless  greatly  discon- 
certed by  the  indiscretions  of  Genet,  who 
apparently  regarded  the  United  States  as  a 
French  province,  and  who  commissioned  pri- 
vateers, established  prize-courts,  issued  proc- 
lamations, and  appealed  to  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  as  if  an  ambassador  of  the 
French  republic  were  not  obliged  to  recog- 
nize the  National  Government  unless  he 
chose. 

All  these  amazing  proceedings  of  Genet 
were  warmly  approved  by  the  extreme  Re- 
publicans, but  Jefferson,  however  he  may 
have  secretely  sympathized  with  the  auda- 
cious stranger,  felt  obliged  to  warn  him  that 
his  conduct  was  not  to  be  tolerated.  The 
surprised  minister  was  recalled  by  his  Gov- 
ernment, at  the  request  of  President  Wash- 


FIRST  THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS      IQ 

ington,  and  that  incident  was  at  least  tem- 
porarily closed.  But  we  may  charge  to  the 
account  of  the  prevailing  temper  of  the 
American  people  at  that  time  the  fact  that 
the  Republicans  had  a  small  majority  in  the 
House  of  Representatives  when  the  Third 
Congress  met  in  December,  1793,  although 
there  was  an  unattached  political  contingent 
in  the  House  holding  a  balance  of  power  suf- 
ficiently solid  to  act  as  a  check  upon  the 
larger  faction. 

During  the  Third  Congress  many  bitter 
fights  raged  over  such  questions  as  State 
rights,  internal  revenue  taxation,  the  tariff, 
and  trade  with  foreign  countries.  Out  of 
the  enforcement  of  the  internal  revenue  tax 
grew  the  Whiskey  Rebellion ;  the  people  of 
several  of  the  western  counties  of  Pennsyl- 
vania declared  that  they  would  not  pay 
the  excise  dues ;  they  stoned  and  otherwise 
maltreated  the  agents  of  the  National  Gov- 
ernment, very  much  as  the  "  moonshiners " 
of  a  later  day  have  done,  and  finally  rose 
in  open  revolt  against  all  lawfully  consti- 
tuted authority.  The  publication  of  the  Jay 
Treaty  furnished  another  pretext  for  the 
rampant  attitude  of  the  Republicans,  who, 
by  this  time,  had  acquired  a  habit  of  railing 
against  everything  that  was  done  by  the  ad- 


20        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

ministration  of  Washington.  Jay's  treaty 
with  England,  although  it  did  not  provide 
for  the  removal  of  all  the  causes  of  popular 
complaint,  did  make  provision  for  a  more  en- 
larged foreign  trade  for  the  young  republic, 
and  it  was  eventually  ratified  by  the  Senate. 
It  is  interesting  to  note  the  asperity  with 
which  the  House  of  Representatives,  spurred 
on  by  the  Republicans,  then  claimed  some 
share  in  the  business  of  treaty-making,  if  not 
in  the  actual  ratification  of  treaties.  The 
contention  of  the  malcontents  was  that  the 
House  ought  at  least  to  be  allowed  to  dis- 
cuss the  provisions  of  treaties  proposed. 

Democratic  societies,  which  were  really 
clubs  of  Jeffersonian  Republicans,  sprang  up 
all  over  the  country,  and  were  denounced 
for  their  alleged  relations  to  the  Jacobins  of 
France.  These,  in  the  absence  of  political 
platforms  (as  yet  unknown),  passed  resolu- 
tions denouncing  the  excise  tax,  praising 
Genet  and  his  successors  in  this  country, 
condemning  neutrality,  assailing  the  Admin- 
istration with  virulence,  and  abusing  the 
President  in  good  set  terms.  The  reptile 
press,  managed  by  such  partisans  as  Philip 
Freneau  and  Benjamin  Franklin  Bache, 
teemed  with  the  most  indecent  assaults  on 
the  character  of  Washington,  who  was  called 


FIRST  THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS      21 

"  the  Stepfather  of  His  Country,"  accused  of 
incompetency  during  the  war,  and  of  an  em- 
bezzlement of  the  public  funds  ;  and  he  was 
even  actually  threatened  with  impeachment 
and  assassination.  It  is  not  creditable  to  the 
candor  of  Jefferson  that  one  of  these  slander- 
ers was  kept  in  the  employment  of  the  Gov- 
ernment under  his  administration  of  the 
State  Department,  while  thus  brutally  assail- 
ing the  character  of  Washington.  The  Sec- 
retary of  State  has  set  down  in  his  diary  the 
fact  that  Washington,  having  vented  his  in- 
dignation against  Freneau,  gave  Jefferson 
the  impression  that  he  was  about  to  ask  that 
the  man  be  discharged  from  the  public  ser- 
vice. "  I  will  not,"  added  the  faithful  Sec- 
retary to  his  record  of  the  implied  request  of 
the  President. 

When  Washington,  sickened  of  public  life 
by  attacks  which,  as  he  said,  were  "  in  terms 
so  exaggerated  and  indecent  as  could  scarce- 
ly be  applied  to  a  Nero,  a  notorious  default- 
er, or  even  to  a  common  pickpocket,"  had 
retired  to  private  life,  refusing  a  third  term 
of  the  Presidency,  the  first  national  election 
that  was  conducted  on  strictly  political  lines 
had  come  on.  No  platforms  were  framed, 
no  conventions  held,  and  no  primaries  organ- 
ized. But  the  articles  of  faith  of  each  of  the 


22         SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

two  great  political  parties  were  by  this  time 
clearly  formulated  and  understood.  As  for 
the  candidates,  it  was  in  like  manner  well 
understood  that  Thomas  Jefferson  and  Aaron 
Burr  were  the  choice  of  the.  Republicans  for 
President  and  Vice-President,  and  that  the 
Federalists  would  vote  for  John  Adams  and 
Thomas  Pinckney,  respectively,  to  fill  those 
offices.  The  canvass  of  Jefferson  gave  oc- 
casion for  the  first  direct  foreign  interference 
with  our  domestic  politics.  The  French 
Minister  to  the  United  States,  M.  Adet,  hav- 
ing taken  a  hand  in  the  pending  canvass, 
gradually  wrought  himself  up  to  the  point 
of  informing  the  free  and  independent  vot- 
ers of  the  United  States  that  the  defeat  of 
his  friend  Jefferson  would  be  regarded  by 
France  as  a  possible  cause  of  war.  This  fin- 
ished Mr.  Jefferson  for  the  time.  When  the 
electoral  votes  were  counted  (in  February, 
1797),  John  Adams  had  seventy-one,  Thomas 
Jefferson  sixty-eight,  Thomas  Pinckney  fifty- 
nine,  and  Aaron  Burr  thirty.  The  Federal- 
ists had  elected  their  candidate ;  but,  under 
the  operation  of  the  curious  methods  pre- 
vailing, the  Republican  candidate  for  Presi- 
dent had  been  chosen  Vice-President.  Fisher 
Ames,  in  a  letter  written  at  this  time,  proph- 
esied that  "  the  two  Presidents  would  jostle 


AARON    BURR. 
From  a  picture  by  Vanderlyn  at  the  New  York  Historical  Society. 


FIRST   THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS      2$ 

and  conflict  for  four  years,  and  then  the 
Vice  would  become  chief."  This  was  ex- 
actly what  happened. 

Foreign  affairs  furnished  the  chief  causes 
that  led  to  the  downfall  of  the  Federal  party, 
and  the  elevation  of  the  Republicans  to 
power.  The  French  Directory,  as  if  in  exe- 
cution of  the  threat  implied  in  M.  Adet's 
electioneering  letter  in  behalf  of  Jefferson, 
insulted  the  American  republic  with  deliber- 
ate and  most  exasperating-  detail.  Our  en- 
voy to  France  was  treated  with  contempt, 
and  even  contumely,  and  when  three  special 
agents  were  sent  to  smooth  matters  over,  if 
possible,  they  were  not  only  insulted,  but 
were  told  that  they  must  bribe  the  Direc- 
tory, and  that  the  United  States  Government 
must  lend  money  to  the  French  Govern- 
ment, if  amicable  relations  between  the  two 
republics  were  to  continue  longer. 

So  deeply  infatuated  were  a  portion  of  our 
people  with  French  Republicanism  that  even 
the  shameful  treatment  of  the  American  en- 
voys in  France  had  been  insufficient  to  rouse 
their  spirit ;  but  when  the  famous  "  X  Y  Z  " 
letters  were  published,  and  the  audacious  pro- 
posals of  bribery  and  blackmail  were  fastened 
upon  the  French  Directory,  the  fierceness  of 
the  outburst  in  this  country  for  a  time  dis- 


26        SHORT  STUDIES  IN  PARTY  POLITICS 

mayed  even  the  most  ultra  of  the  Republi- 
cans and  brought  to  the  ranks  of  the  exult- 
ing Federalists  many  voters  who  had  hereto- 
fore acted  with  their  adversaries. 

With  amazement  and  wrath,  the  American 
people  learned  that  the  three  commissioners, 
C.  C.  Pinckney,  John  Marshall,  and  Elbridge 
Gerry,  had  not  only  been  peremptorily  or- 
dered to  quit  France,  after  months  of  inex- 
plicable delays  on  the  part  of  the  French 
Government,  but  had  been  insulted  by  propo- 
sitions of  bribery.  The  French  agents,  whose 
identity  was  concealed  under  the  initials 
"  X  Y  Z,"  had  demanded  blackmail  for  them- 
selves and  their  associates  and  loans  to  the 
French  Government  as  a  condition  precedent 
to  the  settlement  of  diplomatic  difficulties 
pending  between  the  two  republics.  These 
facts,  so  discreditable  to  the  French  govern- 
ment, were  published  by  order  of  the  United 
States  Senate ;  and  our  people  soon  knew 
that  the  three  corrupt  and  audacious  French 
agents  were  MM.  Hottiguer  (X),  Bellamy 
(Y),  and  Hauteval  (Z). 

French  hostility  now  became  more  and 
more  patent,  and  the  war  spirit  flamed  out 
in  Congress  and  all  over  the  country.  The 
Republicans,  whose  distinctive  badge  had 
been  the  tricolored  cockade,  were  silenced, 


FIRST  THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS      2/ 

while  the  people  shouted  the  newest  slogan, 
"  Millions  for  defence  ;  not  one  cent  for  trib- 
ute." This  war-cry,  stamped  on  copper 
cents  or  tokens,  and  emblazoned  in  every 
possible  way  in  every  section  of  the  republic, 
was  the  American  answer  to  the  insulting 
demand  of  the  French  ;  and  under  the  influ- 
ence of  this  new  demonstration  of  a  distinc- 
tively American  spirit  of  patriotism,  the  Fed- 
eralists carried  themselves  with  a  high  front. 
This  was  the  cause  of  their  ruin.  In  the 
flush  of  their  victory  over  the  Republicans, 
and  with  a  good  working  majority  in  both 
branches  of  Congress,  they  passed  the  fa- 
mous Alien  and  Sedition  Laws.  The  first  of 
these,  enacted  in  June,  1798,  authorized  the 
President  to  expel  from  the  United  States 
any  alien  whom  he  should  judge  to  be  dan- 
gerous to  the  liberties  of  the  country  ;  and 
the  second  law,  passed  in  July  of  that  year, 
imposed  fines  and  imprisonment  upon  any 
who  should  combine  to  oppose  any  measure 
of  the  Government,  or  should  utter  a  false, 
malicious,  or  scandalous  writing  against  the 
members  of  the  Government  of  the  United 
States.  The  fact  that  these  two  laws,  em- 
bodying as  they  did  the  extremest  principles 
of  the  Federalist  creed,  and  lodging  in  the 
hands  of  the  Executive  enormous  power 


28         SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

over  the  persons  of  alien  residents,  were 
placed  on  the  statute-books  for  a  specified 
term  of  years  (to  remain  until  March  3,  1801), 
added  to  their  odiousness  and  immediate  un- 
popularity. The  dictatorial  policy  pursued 
toward  the  United  States  by  the  French  Gov- 
ernment, and  the  firm  and  patriotic  stand 
taken  by  the  Adams  administration  were 
enough,  one  would  suppose,  to  fortify  the 
Federalists  in  power  for  years  to  come ;  but 
the  enactment  of  the  Alien  and  Sedition 
Laws  was  naturally  regarded  by  the  Repub- 
licans as  a  stretch  of  power  not  justified  by 
the  Constitution  and  aimed  at  them  and  their 
allies.  To  the  slogan  "  Millions  for  defence  " 
now  succeeded  "  Save  liberty  of  speech  "  and 
"  Defend  the  freedom  of  the  press."  For 
many  a  year  afterward  these  two  cries  were 
terrible  in  the  ears  of  the  Federalists. 

Burning  in  effigy  was  one  of  the  favorite  de- 
vices of  angry  patriots  in  these  days.  When 
Chief-Justice  Jay  had  negotiated  the  famous 
treaty  with  England  that  bore  his  name,  he 
was  burned  in  effigy  and  lampooned  from  one 
end  of  the  republic  to  the  other.  Even  be- 
fore the  text  of  the  treaty  was  made  public, 
the  Chief-Justice  was  pilloried  and  burned  in 
effigy  by  indignant  Philadelphians,  who  ran- 
sacked Juvenal,  Ovid,  and  Virgil  for  clas- 


FIRST  THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS      29 

sical  epithets  wherewith  to  garnish  the  base 
image  of  the  man  whom  they  execrated.  Al- 
though the  passage  of  the  obnoxious  Alien 
and  Sedition  Laws  greatly  excited  the  peo- 
ple, or  at  least  the  Republicans,  their  opposi- 
tion did  not  manifest  itself  so  much  in  the 
personal  abuse  of  individuals  (though  this 
was  common  enough)  as  in  remonstrances 
and  petitions  for  repeal.  Later  on,  riots  and 
mobs  were  caused  by  the  popular  excitement, 
and  innumerable  collisions  resulted  in  many 
parts  of  the  country  from  the  angry  debates 
over  the  burning  topic  of  the  day. 

One  of  the  immediate  effects  of  the  enact- 
ment of  the  Alien  and  Sedition  Laws  was  the 
framing  of  the  famous  Virginia  and  Kentucky 
Resolutions  of  '98,  a  formulation  of  the  Jef- 
fersonian-Democratic  creed  which  has  had  its 
adherents  unto  this  day.  The  Republicans 
had  finally  seen  that  as  the  Executive,  Con- 
gress, and  the  Federal  Judiciary  were  still 
Federalist,  they  must  go  into  the  State  Leg- 
islatures and  initiate  there  the  action  which 
they  desired  to  see  taken  for  the  shaping  of 
public  opinion.  Of  course  the  excited  condi- 
tion of  the  popular  mind  on  the  subject  of 
the  repressive  measures  of  Congress  was  the 
golden  opportunity  of  Jefferson,  who  affected 
to  believe  (as  he  had  said  in  his  letter  to  Ste- 


3O        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

vens  Thomson  Mason,  of  Virginia),  that  the 
Federalists  were  bent  on  setting  up  a  mon- 
archy, and  that  if  the  Alien  and  Sedition 
Laws  were  permitted  to  stand,  they  would 
next  propose  making  Adams  President  for 
life  and  fix  the  succession  in  the  Adams  fam- 
ily. If  Jefferson  really  believed  such  non- 
sense as  this,  what  wonder  that  many  of  "  the 
plain  people  "  also  believed  worse  things  of 
the  Federal  party  ? 

But  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky  Resolu- 
tions went  quite  as  far  in  the  direction  of  de- 
centralization as  any  act  of  the  Federalists 
had  gone  in  the  opposite  course.  The  reso- 
lutions, written  by  Jefferson  while  holding 
the  office  of  Vice-President,  were  given  to 
George  Nicholas,  of  Kentucky,  and  by  him 
their  adoption  by  the  Legislature  of  his  State 
was  procured.  Two  months  later,  James 
Madison,  prompted  by  Jefferson,  had  them 
introduced  in  the  Virginia  Legislature,  and 
that  body  passed  the  same  resolutions  slight- 
ly changed.  A  plentiful  crop  of  rioting  and 
disorder  followed  the  adoption  of  this  formal 
declaration  of  the  abstract  doctrine  of  State 
rights  in  its  most  naked  form.  But  the  hated 
Alien  and  Sedition  Laws  remained  unre- 
pealed  ;  the  Federalists  in  Congress  formally 
decided  to  let  them  stay  on  the  statute-books. 


FIRST  THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS      31 

Matthew  Lyon,  the  first  victim  of  the 
"  Federal  Bastile  "  of  that  day,  was  already 
famed  as  the  inciter  of  the  first  fight  that 
ever  disgraced  the  American  Congress.  Lyon 
was  a  Representative  from  Vermont,  a  bit- 
ter Anti-Federalist,  who  had  won  much  no- 
toriety as  a  coarse  and  brutal  debater  and 
a  violent  partisan.  In  the  course  of  a  wordy 
wrangle  with  Mr.  Griswold,  a  Representative 
from  Connecticut,  in  the  House  of  Represen- 
tatives, in  January,  1798,  Lyon  deliberately 
spat  in  the  face  of  the  Connecticut  Congress- 
man ;  and  thereupon  ensued  great  disorder 
which  was  renewed  a  day  or  two  later  when 
Griswold  walked  over  to  Lyon's  seat  and 
with  deliberation  beat  him  with  a  cudgel. 
In  the  free  fight  that  followed,  Lyon  de- 
fended himself  with  a  pair  of  tongs  snatched 
from  the  fireplace,  and  a  fisticuff  encounter 
ensued.  The  offence  for  which  Lyon  was 
subsequently  tried  and  convicted  of  sedition, 
was  his  reading  at  a  public  meeting  a  letter 
from  Joel  Barlow,  the  author  of  the  Ameri- 
can epic,  "  The  Columbiad,"  and  other  queer 
pieces  of  blank  verse,  then  residing  in  Eu- 
rope ;  but  Lyon's  own  letters,  printed  in 
Vermont,  were  held  to  be  full  of  seditious 
matter.  Barlow  had  said  that  the  answer 
of  the  House  to  President  Adams's  address 


32         SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

should  have  been  "  an  order  to  send  him  to 
a  mad-house  ;  "  and  Lyon  had  written,  among 
other  things,  that  the  Government  was  "  us- 
ing the  sacred  name  of  religion  as  a  state  en- 
gine to  make  mankind  hate  and  persecute 
each  other,"  and  he  complained  that  "  mean 
men  "  were  rewarded  by  places  while  their 
betters  were  denied  place  on  account  of  their 
"  independency  of  sentiment,"  with  more  to 
the  same  effect ;  but  not  enough,  one  might 
say,  to  constitute  groundwork  for  so  grave 
a  charge  as  that  of  sedition  and  privy  con- 
spiracy. Nevertheless,  Matthew  was  found 
guilty,  was  scolded  by  the  judge,  and  was 
sentenced  to  pay  a  fine  of  one  thousand  dol- 
lars and  be  kept  in  the  jail  at  Vergennes,  Vt., 
four  months. 

Although  President  Adams  was  the  nomi- 
nal head  of  the  Federalist  party,  Alexander 
Hamilton  was  its  real  leader.  That  remarka- 
ble man,  who  resigned  the  office  of  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  in  February,  1795,  and  re- 
turned to  the  practice  of  his  profession  in 
New  York,  was  at  the  forefront  of  every 
movement  designed  to  advance  the  cause 
of  the  Federal  party.  In  a  public  and  most 
spirited  defence  of  the  Jay  Treaty,  in  New 
York,  he  was  mobbed  and  stoned  by  an  an- 
gry and  belligerent  crowd  of  citizens.  He 


ALEXANDER    HAMILTON. 
From  a  picture  by  Trumbull,  about  1804,  in  the  New  York  City  Hall. 


FIRST   THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS      35 

may  have  been  said  to  have  bled  in  the  good 
cause,  for  his  face  was  covered  with  bleeding 
wounds  while  he  pleaded  for  the  right  to  be 
heard.  As  a  defender  of  the  faith,  he  was 
entitled  to  honor ;  and  as  a  leader  of  public 
opinion  he  was  easily  far  in  advance  of  every 
other  man  in  the  ranks  of  the  Federal  party. 

Hamilton  was  resolutely  opposed  to  the 
Sedition  Bill,  both  because  it  was  "  bad  poli- 
tics "  and  because  of  its  excessive  use  of  the 
executive  powers.  He  had  written  to  Con- 
gressmen and  had  argued  against  even  a 
semblance  of  tyranny,  such  as  the  proposed 
law  was  in  his  eyes.  Hamilton's  coolness  to- 
ward Adams  and  the  influential  friends  of 
the  Adams  administration  deepened  when 
the  President,  to  the  infinite  surprise  of  al- 
most everybody,  including  the  members  of 
his  own  cabinet,  suddenly  resolved  to  send 
three  envoys  to  act  as  Ministers-Plenipotenti- 
ary to  France.  This  widened  the  breach  be- 
tween Hamilton  and  Adams,  and  it  was  not 
long  before  the  ex-Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
was  popularly  regarded  as  one  of  the  leaders 
of  a  new  faction  known  as  the  Independent 
Federalists.  Dissensions  like  these  embar- 
rassed and  weakened  the  Federal  party,  al- 
ready toppling  to  its  fall. 

Jefferson,   a   consummate   party  manager, 


36        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

remained  quiet  while  these  quarrels  were  in 
progress,  although  we  may  be  sure  that  his 
cunning  hand  was  in  many  an  intrigue  which 
added  to  the  complications  besetting  the 
path  of  the  Federalists.  "  The  Sage  of  Mon- 
ticello"  wisely  waited  for  factious  excite- 
ments to  work ;  and  the  time  for  the  fourth 
presidential  election  drew  near.  His  influen- 
tial counsels  held  the  eager  Republicans  in 
check ;  the  general  irritation  over  the  en- 
forcement of  the  Alien  and  Sedition  Laws 
steadily  increased.  The  Federalists  had  se- 
cured a  goodly  majority  in  both  branches 
of  Congress  (the  Sixth),  which  met  in  De- 
cember, 1799,  but  which  had  been  chosen 
during  the  war  excitement  that  broke  out  on 
the  ignominious  return  of  our  envoys  to 
France,  and  the  publication  of  the  "  X  Y  Z  " 
letters.  Jefferson  was  calmly  biding  his 
time. 

That  time  came  when  a  Congressional 
caucus  of  the  Republican  members  nominated 
him  for  the  Presidency  (in  1800,  during  the 
first  session  of  the  Sixth  Congress),  with 
Aaron  Burr  for  Vice-President.  A  Federal 
caucus,  during  the  same  session,  placed  in 
nomination  John  Adams  and  Thomas  Pinck- 
ney  as  their  candidates  for  President  and 
Vice-President.  For  the  first  time,  party 


FIRST   THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS      37 

caucuses  had  selected  candidates  to  be  sup- 
ported in  a  political  campaign,  if  we  may 
give  to  the  Jefferson-Adams  canvass  so  mod- 
ern a  title.  There  had  been  caucuses  of  the 
members  of  both  branches  of  Congress,  not- 
ably those  which  William  Duane,  the  reckless 
and  defamatory  editor  of  the  Philadelphia 
Aurora,  a  fierce  Anti- Federalist  sheet,  had 
denounced  as  a  junta,  that  determined  the  ac- 
tion of  the  controlling  majority  in  Congress ; 
for  this  denunciation  he  was  ordered  into  ar- 
rest by  the  Senate  on  charge  of  contempt. 
But  "  the  Presidential  intrigues "  which 
Duane  suspected  brought  forth  from  the  cau- 
cus the  name  of  Jefferson  as  well  as  that  of 
Adams. 

New  York  was  early  found  to  be  "  the 
pivotal  State  "  in  a  presidential  contest,  and 
the  election  in  that  State  of  members  of  the 
Legislature,  which  took  place  in  April,  1800, 
resulting  as  it  did  in  the  choice  of  a  Repub- 
lican legislature  by  which  the  Presidential 
Electors  were  to  be  chosen,  gave  great  im- 
petus to  Jefferson's  campaign.  Party  zeal 
was  at  once  rekindled,  and,  in  the  commotion 
that  followed,  Adams's  cabinet  was  broken 
up,  some  of  its  members  voluntarily  retiring 
and  some  being  summarily  dismissed.  Ham- 
ilton, whose  friends  in  the  cabinet  were  stig- 


38        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

matized  by  the  President  as  "  the  British  fac- 
tion," wrote  a  furious  pamphlet,  in  which  he 
assailed  Adams  personally  as  a  man  of  insane 
jealousy,  tremendous  self-conceit,  and  un- 
governable temper.  He  also  bitterly  criti- 
cised the  foreign  and  domestic  policy  of  the 
Adams  administration,  and  disclosed  secrets 
of  the  political  management  of  the  time. 
Hamilton's  intention  was  to  send  this  pam- 
phlet privately  to  trusted  Federalist  leaders, 
with  the  adjuration  that  the  safety  of  their 
cause  demanded  that  the  Federalist  Presi- 
dential Electors  should  be  induced  to  cast 
their  ballots  for  Pinckney  for  President,  and 
keep  the  second  place  for  Adams.  But 
Aaron  Burr,  getting  wind  of  this  remarkable 
document,  procured  a  copy  of  it  and  had  it 
printed  in  the  chief  Republican  newspapers 
of  the  country. 

Although  the  commotion  arising  from  the 
explosion  of  this  bomb-shell  was  tremendous 
and  was  most  demoralizing  to  the  Federal- 
ists, there  was  no  such  rush  of  Presidential 
Electors  to  the  Republicans,  when  their 
balloting  began,  as  the  Jeffersonians  had  con- 
fidently expected.  For  weeks  the  result  was 
in  doubt.  The  difficulty  of  communication 
between  points  not  very  remote  from  each 
other  kept  the  country  long  in  suspense  ;  but, 


FIRST  THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS      39 

on  December  i6th,  while  the  Federalists 
were  exulting  over  the  fact  that  the  returns 
footed  up  forty-seven  votes  for  Adams  and 
forty-six  for  Jefferson,  returns  from  South 
Carolina  decided  the  fate  of  the  Federal 
party,  and  a  majority  was  given  to  the  Re- 
publicans in  the  Electoral  College. 

Now  came  on  the  first  disputed  electoral 
count ;  and  the  elation  of  the  Jeffersonians 
was  temporarily  depressed.  Although  the 
candidates  in  the  national  election  had  been 
voted  for  as  nominated  for  the  Presidency 
and  the  Vice-Presidency,  respectively,  the 
constitutional  provision  relating  to  the  se- 
lection of  the  highest  name  on  the  list  for 
President  still  remained  in  force.  Jefferson 
and  Burr  each  received  seventy-three  votes  ; 
there  was  no  highest  candidate.  Burr,  with 
his  characteristic  talent  for  intrigue,  had 
steadily  kept  in  view  the  possibilities  of  his 
own  election  to  the  presidency,  and  had  even 
taken  pains  that  one  of  the  New  York  elec- 
tors should  be  persuaded  to  substitute  his 
(Burr's)  name  for  that  of  Jefferson  on  the 
ballot  which  he  was  to  cast  at  the  meeting 
of  the  Presidential  Electors  of  his  State. 
Now  that  the  election  was  to  be  thrown  into 
the  House  of  Representatives,  Burr  stood  as 
good  a  chance  of  being  the  choice  of  its 


4O        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

members  as  Jefferson  did.  At  least  Burr 
thought  so,  and  he  put  forward  his  schemes 
with  confidence  and  alacrity. 

The  Federalists,  naturally  tickled  by  this 
complication,  did  not  behave  with  gener- 
osity. They  proposed  to  hinder  any  choice 
by  the  House,  expecting  to  carry  the  con- 
test into  the  Senate ;  and  that  body,  under 
the  Constitution,  would  be  allowed  to  choose 
some  senator,  or  the  Chief-Justice,  to  act  as 
President  until  Congress  should  meet  again, 
and  a  new  election  by  the  people  be  ordered. 
Or,  if  things  came  to  the  worst,  they  would 
vote  for  the  intriguing,  but  little  -  known, 
Burr  rather  than  for  the  detestable  Jefferson. 
When  President  Adams  was  besought  by 
the  now  thoroughly  alarmed  Jefferson  to 
interfere  to  prevent  these  plans  from  being 
executed,  he  coldly  said  that  he  could  not 
think  of  interfering  with  the  prerogatives  of 
Congress. 

Great  was  the  excitement  throughout  the 
United  States  when,  after  the  formal  count- 
ing of  the  electoral  vote  and  the  declaration 
of  the  fact  that  there  had  been  no  choice  for 
President,  the  two  Houses  of  Congress  sepa- 
rated and  the  House  of  Representatives  be- 
gan to  ballot,  February  11,  1801.  There 
were  threats  of  armed  intervention  in  behalf 


FIRST  THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS      41 

of  Jefferson,  and  there  were  rumbles  of  pop- 
ular applause  for  Burr.  Washington,  the 
new  capital  of  the  republic,  difficult  of  access 
and  poorly  provided  with  accommodations 
for  sojourners,  could  not  find  room  for  the 
thousands  of  persons  who  flocked  thither 
to  watch  the  proceedings.  Roll-calls  in  the 
House  were  incessant,  and  at  first  night  ses- 
sions were  held,  to  the  great  discomfort  of 
members,  some  of  whom  took  their  night- 
caps, pillows,  and  wraps  with  them  to  the 
Capitol.  Finally,  on  the  thirty-sixth  ballot, 
the  Federalists,  who  had  all  along  obstructed 
the  election,  gave  way,  and  Jefferson  was 
elected,  receiving  the  votes  of  ten  States. 
Burr  received  the  votes  of  four  States,  and 
two  States  cast  blank  ballots.  The  contest 
had  lasted  six  days,  and  the  release  of  public 
attention  from  a  long  and  tense  strain  was 
fortunate  and  notable. 

The  price  demanded  by  the  Federalists  for 
their  surrender  to  Jefferson  was  fixed  in  cau- 
cus, and  was  formulated  by  James  Bayard, 
of  Delaware,  and  Alexander  Hamilton,  of 
New  York,  these  men  having  managed  the 
Federalist  phalanx  in  the  interest  of  Jeffer- 
son. That  price  was  an  assurance  from  Jef- 
ferson that  the  Federalists  might  fully  trust 
him  to  carry  out  their  wishes  ;  he  would  take 


42        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

good  care  of  the  infant  navy,  look  carefully 
after  the  public  credit,  which  had  been  main- 
tained under  the  policy  of  Hamilton,  and 
would  not  remove  any  petty  Federal  office- 
holder who  had  taken  part  in  the  late  cam- 
paign under  the  Federalist  banner.  The 
first  disputed  presidential  election  case  had 
been  decided,  and  that,  too,  as  might  have 
been  expected,  by  a  bargain  between  the 
electors  and  the  elected.  The  first  political 
revolution  in  the  United  States  was  accom- 
plished. 

A  pleasing  story  of  Jefferson's  inaugura- 
tion that  has  long  been  current  reports  him 
as  riding  to  the  Capitol  and  tying  his  horse 
to  the  fence,  and  then  entering  almost  unat- 
tended to  take  the  oath  of  office.  This  fable 
has  been  dispersed.  Contemporaneous  ac- 
counts relate  his  ceremonial  installation  into 
office  surrounded  by  martial  music,  banners, 
and  guns.  Salvos  of  artillery  announced  his 
arrival  and  departure  from  the  Capitol,  and 
the  militia  paraded  in  front  of  his  lodgings 
before  he  left  for  the  ceremony.  His  inau- 
gural address  formulated  the  political  creed 
of  the  Democratic  -  Republican  party,  of 
which  he  was  the  leader  and  exemplar.  The 
parent  of  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky  Reso- 
lutions declared  in  favor  of  State  rights,  fru- 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 
From  a  study  by  Gilbert  Stuart— now  the  property  of  T.  Jefferson  Coolidge. 


FIRST  THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS      45 

gal  expenditures,  of  the  national  revenues, 
honest  elections,  payment  of  the  public  debt, 
a  well-regulated  militia,  freedom  of  the  per- 
son, press,  and  religious  belief,  and  the  diffu- 
sion of  knowledge. 

One  of  the  earliest  of  Jefferson's  innova- 
tions was  his  disregard  of  the  custom  of  a 
ceremonious  visit  of  the  President  to  Con- 
gress to  read  or  deliver  in  person  his  annual 
message.  Jefferson's  critics  said  that  he  was 
not  able  to  acquit  himself  creditably  as  a 
speaker  and  reader,  and  so  he  wrote  his  mes- 
sage and  sent  it  by  a  messenger.  But  fierce 
Republicans  had  all  along  resented  the  pub- 
lic appearance  of  the  President  in  the  halls 
of  Congress.  William  Maclay,  during  the 
administration  of  Washington,  wrote  in  his 
diary  several  unfriendly  accounts  of  Wash- 
ington's formal  visits  to  the  Capitol,  one  oc- 
casion being  to  explain  to  the  Senate  in  ses- 
sion certain  pending  Indian  treaties  which 
the  President  was  anxious  to  see  ratified  at 
once  and  over  which  the  Senate  hesitated. 
Maclay  says  that  Washington's  "  motions 
were  slow  rather  than  lively,  though  he 
showed  no  signs  of  having  suffered  by  gout 
or  rheumatism.  His  complexion  pale,  nay, 
almost  cadaverous.  His  voice  hollow  and 
indistinct,  owing,  as  I  believe,  to  artificial 


46        SHORT  STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

teeth  before  his  upper  jaw,  which  occasioned 
a  flatness  of —  ;  "  but  here  some  friendly 
hand  has  intruded  to  tear  from  the  diary  the 
rest  of  the  stanch  old  Republican's  descrip- 
tion of  the  father  of  his  country,  and  the 
picture  is  left  incomplete. 

Removals  from  office  for  political  consid- 
erations engaged  Jefferson's  attention  when 
he  had  firmly  seated  himself  in  the  presiden- 
tial chair.  District-attorneys  and  marshals 
of  the  Federal  courts,  "  the  shield  of  the  Re- 
publican part  of  the  community,"  Jefferson 
called  them,  were  the  first  to  go.  But  the 
removal  of  Elizur  Goodrich,  Collector  of 
Customs  at  New  Haven,  Conn.,  gave  occa- 
sion for  one  of  Jefferson's  most  famous  utter- 
ances. The  removal  of  Goodrich  and  the 
appointment  of  Samuel  Bishop  as  his  suc- 
cessor were  highly  distasteful  to  the  mer- 
chants, more  especially  as  Bishop  was  an 
aged  man,  and  already  held  the  offices  of 
town-clerk,  mayor,  justice  of  the  peace,  judge 
of  the  probate  court,  and  chief  judge  of  the 
common  pleas.  In  his  reply  to  the  mer- 
chants' remonstrance,  Jefferson  argued  that 
the  right  to  appoint  men  to  vacancies  during 
a  recess  of  the  Senate  implied  a  right  to  re- 
move officials.  For  how  could  there  be  va- 
cancies unless  removals  made  them  ?  Of 


FIRST  THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS      47 

vacancies  he  said  :  "  Those  by  death  are  few  ; 
by  resignation  none."  Altogether,  Jeffer- 
son made  thirty-nine  removals  from  office, 
none  of  which,  he  said,  was  for  political  rea- 
sons, difficult  though  this  may  be  to  believe. 
Washington  had  made  nine  removals,  and 
Adams  the  same  number.  But  several  of 
Adams's  appointments,  on  the  eve  of  his 
quitting  the  presidential  office,  were  cer- 
tainly inconsistent  with  decorum.  Adams, 
whose  home  was  in  Braintree,  Mass.,  had 
been  nicknamed  by  his  adversaries  "  The 
Duke  of  Braintree,"  and  twenty-three  circuit 
judges  whom  he  appointed  to  fill  places  just 
created  by  Congress,  in  the  last  hours  of  his 
official  life,  were  stigmatized  as  "  The  Duke 
of  Braintree's  Midnight  Judges.'*  Unsuc- 
cessful attempts  were  made  to  oust  them. 

But  although  politics  and  official  patron- 
age first  became  wedded  in  Jefferson's  reign, 
more  notable  events  shed  lustre  on  his  ad- 
ministration. The  acquisition  of  Louisiana 
Territory  by  purchase  from  France  was  the 
most  brilliant  stroke  of  that  administration  ; 
but  this  was  accomplished  by  an  invasion  of 
the  political  creed  of  the  Democratic-Repub- 
licans almost  ludicrous  in  its  audacity.  The 
treaty  by  which  the  purchase  was  completed 
was  negotiated  by  James  Monroe  and  ap- 


48         SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

proved  by  the  President  without  any  ap- 
parent authority  whatever ;  and  when  the 
ratification  of  that  convention  came  up  for 
consideration,  the  Republicans  were  forced 
to  take  the  same  position  that  the  Federalists 
had  taken  when  the  Jay  Treaty  was  under 
debate  ;  and  the  Federalists  calmly  ate  their 
own  words  and  argued  against  the  lawful- 
ness and  constitutionality  of  Jefferson's  ac- 
tion. The  President,  however,  confidently 
appealed  to  public  sentiment  to  justify  his 
course  ;  and  the  acquisition  of  this  magnifi- 
cent territory  gave  us  material  from  which 
have  since  been  carved  the  States  of  Louis- 
iana, Arkansas,  Missouri,  Iowa,  Nebraska, 
Minnesota,  Kansas,  North  Dakota,  South 
Dakota,  Montana,  the  greater  parts  of  Idaho, 
Wyoming,  and  Colorado,  and  the  Indian 
Territory.  This  was  the  first  annexation  of 
territory  to  the  United  States,  acquired  by 
purchase  from  a  foreign  power. 

The  firsjt  schism  in  the  Democratic-Repub- 
lican party  was  that  Uf  the~"  Quids,"  who, 
under  the  leadership  oi  the  vituperative  and 
^ccentric  John  Randolph,  formed  a  faction 
of  extreme  State  Rights  men  with  ultra- 
Democratic :  jjrpclivities. Randolph  had  be- 
come  alienated  from  Jefferson  on  account  of 
purely  personal  grievances,  and  he  took  oc- 


FIRST  THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS      49 

casion  to  disagree  with  the  President's  views 
when  Jefferson's  message  regarding  Spanish 
aggressions  was  sent  to  Congress,  in  Decem- 
ber, 1805.  He  now  acted  with  the  Federal- 
ists, and  there  was  joined  to  his  faction  a 
knot  of  men  who  later  on  opposed  the  nomi- 
nation of  Madison  as  Jefferson's  successor. 
This  schism  lasted  through  Jefferson's  sec- 
ond term,  but  disappeared  when  Madison 
was  chosen,  in  1813,  and  Monroe  entered  his 
cabinet  as  Secretary  of  State.  Randolph's 
attacks  upon  Jefferson  were  doubtless  very 
galling  to  the  President,  who  was  accused  of 
employing  "  back-stairs  influence  "  on  Con- 
gress, and  was  generally  assailed  in  terms 
too  vulgar  for  quotation  here. 

Foreign  affairs  plagued  American  politics 
greatly  during  Jefferson's  two  terms ;  but 
as  the  Democratic -Republicans,  or  Demo- 
crats, as  they  now  began  to  call  themselves, 
were  in  an  overwhelming  majority  in  both 
branches  of  Congress,  they  were  enabled  to 
carry  through  all  party  measures.  Jefferson 
arbitrarily  rejected  a  new  treaty  with  Eng- 
land, and  was  fiercely  assailed  therefor  by 
the  Federalists.  In  consequence  of  foreign 
complications  arising  from  the  war  between 
France  and  other  European  powers,  an  em- 
bargo on  American  commerce  was  declared, 
4 


5O        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

and  our  ports  were  closed  until  the  Admin- 
istration, frightened  by  threats  from  poverty- 
stricken  and  oppressed  New  England,  in- 
duced a  modification  of  the  odious  act.  The 
taking  of  alleged  British  deserters  from  the 
decks  of  the  American  frigate  Chesapeake 
by  the  British  frigate  Leopard,  after  a  dis- 
gracefully feeble  resistance,  was  another  in- 
cident that  irritated  the  people  and  added 
fuel  to  the  flames  of  political  dissensions. 
The  trial  of  Aaron  Burr  for  high  treason 
was  another  distressing  event  in  Jefferson's 
administration,  for  although  the  President 
(who  refused  to  attend  as  a  witness  when 
summoned)  attempted  to  secure  the  convic- 
tion of  Burr,  he  was  finally  acquitted  by  the 
Virginia  court  in  which  he  was  tried.  Dur- 
ing the  excitement  caused  by  the  Burr  ex- 
pedition down  the  Mississippi,  the  alarmed 
Senate,  which  was  overwhelmingly  Demo- 
cratic, passed  a  bill  to  suspend  the  writ  of 
habeas  corpus  ;  and  another  invasion  of  the 
creed  of  their  party  was  the  passage  of  the 
Cumberland  Road  Bill,  authorizing  the  ex- 
penditure of  public  money  for  the  building 
of  a  so-called  national  highway,  thereby  first 
raising  the  question  of  the  constitutionality 
of  making  internal  improvements  at  public 
expense. 


JOHN    JAY. 
From  a  picture  by  Gilbert  Stuart — property  of  Mrs   John  Jay. 


FIRST  THINGS   IN  AMERICAN   POLITICS      53 

Notwithstanding  the  complaints  of  the 
New  England  and  Middle  States  against  the 
monopoly  of  the  executive  office  by  Vir- 
ginia, James  Madison  was  nominated  by  the 
Democrats  in  the  spring  of  1808,  Jefferson 
having  refused  to  consider  a  third  term. 
Madison  was  first  named  by  the  Legislature 
of  his  own  State,  and  was  formally  nomi- 
nated by  a  Congressional  caucus. 

It  was  during  the  preliminary  intriguing 
for  the  support  of  the  Republican  party  in 
this  election  that  there  was  developed  that 
opposition  to  the  caucus  system  which  event- 
ually substituted  in  American  politics  the 
convention  for  the  caucus.  According  to 
some  authorities  the  word  "  caucus  "  origi- 
nated in  a  corrupted  use  of  the  word  "  calk- 
ers,"  the  calkers  and  gravers  of  New  Eng- 
land having  a  society  which  met  in  secret 
conclave  and  decided  questions  of  interest  to 
their  labor  organization.  John  Adams,  in 
his  diary,  under  date  of  February,  1763,  men- 
tions the  fact  that  the  "  caucus  club "  is  in 
the  practice  of  meeting  "  in  the  garret  of 
Tom  Dawes,  the  adjutant  of  the  Boston  regi- 
ment." 

A  parody  on  "  Gray's  Elegy,"  published 
in  Boston,  in  1788,  and  quoted  by  Mr. 
Charles  Ledyard  Norton,  in  his  useful  little 


54        SHORT  STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

book,  "  Political  Americanisms,"  contains  the 
couplet : 

"  That  mob  of  mobs,  a  caucus  to  command, 

Hurl  wild  discussion  round  the  maddening  land." 

At  all  events,  this  peculiar  institution,  es- 
pecially when  it  was  used  to  control  nomina- 
tions for  the  Presidency,  became  odious  to 
the  people.  We  have  seen  with  what  viru- 
lence the  caucus  system  was  assailed  when  it 
was  employed  by  Congressmen  to  concert 
party  nominations  and  measures.  Open  re- 
bellion broke  out  when,  in  1808,  Senator 
Stephen  R.  Bradley,  of  Vermont,  who  was 
the  chairman  of  the  last  previous  caucus  of 
the  Republican  members  of  Congress,  issued 
a  call  for  another  meeting  of  the  members, 
the  business  in  hand  being  the  selection  of 
candidates  for  the  Presidency  and  Vice-Presi- 
dency. Some  of  the  replies  to  Bradley 's  ad- 
dress indicate,  not  only  the  growing  disfavor 
in  which  the  caucus  system  was  held,  but  the 
violent  style  of  the  political  writing  of  that 
time.  One  of  the  Virginia  members  (Mr. 
Gray),  after  declaring  his  "  abhorrence  of  the 
usurpation  of  power  "  of  which  the  innocent 
Senator  from  New  Hampshire  had  been 
guilty,  went  on  to  say :  "  I  cannot  consent, 
either  in  an  individual  or  representative  ca- 


FIRST  THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS      55 

pacity,  to  countenance  by  my  presence  the 
midnight  intrigues  of  any  set  of  men  who 
may  arrogate  to  themselves  the  right,  which 
belongs  only  to  the  people,  of  selecting 
proper  persons  to  fill  the  important  offices  of 
President  and  Vice  -  President.  Nor  do  I 
suppose  that  the  honest  people  of  the  United 
States  can  much  longer  suffer,  in  silence,  so 
direct  and  palpable  an  invasion  upon  the 
most  important  and  sacred  right  belonging 
exclusively  to  them."  Nevertheless,  the  cau- 
cus was  held,  and  James  Madison  and 
George  Clinton  were  the  nominees  thereof ; 
but  notice  was  taken  of  the  protests  which 
had  been  made  by  those  who  opposed  the 
system.  A  formal  announcement  of  the  re- 
sult of  the  caucus  contained  a  sort  of  post- 
script which  declared  that  "  in  making  the 
foregoing  recommendations  [or  nominations] 
the  members  of  this  meeting  have  acted  only 
in  their  individual  characters  as  citizens." 
And  it  was  added  that  this  "  was  the  most 
practical  mode  of  consulting  and  respecting 
the  interests  of  all  upon  a  subject  so  truly  in- 
teresting to  the  people  of  the  United  States." 
The  caucus  system  was  coming  to  an  end  in 
national  political  affairs. 

The  Federalists,  who  were  now  completely 
out  of  power  in  all  but  two  or  three  of  the 


56        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY    POLITICS 

States,  nominated  C.  C.  Pinckney,  of  South 
Carolina.  Madison  was  elected  by  a  large 
majority,  and  the  returns  showed  that  the 
Federalists  were  well-nigh  exterminated,  but 
they  still  made  a  vigorous  fight  for  life. 

During  Madison's  first  term  the  old  ques- 
tion of  a  National  Bank  was  revived  by  an 
attempt  to  recharter  the  United  States  Bank. 
Although  opposition  to  such  an  institution 
was  a  cardinal  principle  of  the  Democratic 
faith,  the  rechartering  scheme  found  favor 
with  the  ruling  majority  in  both  branches  of 
Congress,  and  was  only  defeated  by  the  cast- 
ing vote  of  the  Vice-President  (George  Clin- 
ton), when  the  bill  was  before  the  Senate. 
The  war-clouds  that  now  began  to  rise 
changed  the  policy  of  the  dominant  party, 
which,  under  Jefferson  (and  so  far  under 
Madison),  had  been  in  favor  of  peace  at  al- 
most any  price.  The  Administration  was 
supine  under  the  most  outrageous  acts  of 
Great  Britain  toward  the  commerce  of  the 
United  States,  and  such  leaders  of  the  party 
as  Henry  Clay,  in  the  House,  and  John  C. 
Calhoun  and  William  H.  Crawford,  in  the 
Senate,  loudly  called  for  war.  Madison,  who 
was  disposed  to  hesitate,  was  plainly  told 
that  he  must  assume  a  more  belligerent  atti- 
tude if  he  expected  another  term  of  office. 


FIRST   THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS      57 

As  that  good  man  wanted  another  term,  he 
surrendered,  and  was  put  in  nomination  by  a 
Democratic-Republican  caucus  of  Congress. 
But  DeWitt  Clinton,  of  New  York,  who  was 
regarded  as  the  candidate  of  the  war  wing 
of  the  Democrats,  and  who  had  been  prom- 
ised the  nomination  in  case  Madison  did  not 
yield,  was  so  dissatisfied  with  the  turn  affairs 
had  taken  that  he  remained  in  the  field  and 
was  nominated  by  a  Democratic  caucus  of 
the  New  York  Legislature,  and  subsequently 
by  an  assemblage  in  New  York  City  which 
closely  resembled  a  political  convention,  the 
first  of  which  we  have  any  record  in  national 
affairs.  The  Federalists,  who  managed  this 
convention,  supported  Clinton ;  but  a  por- 
tion of  the  party  went  over  to  Madison,  who 
was  chosen  by  one  hundred  and  twenty-eight 
electoral  votes,  Clinton  receiving  only  eighty- 
nine. 

The  war  with  England  (1812),  during 
which  the  city  of  Washington  was  sacked 
and  burned,  and  President  Madison  nar- 
rowly escaped  capture,  was  the  fruitful 
source  of  many  new  and  lasting  political 
complications.  The  war  was  bitterly  op- 
posed in  New  England,  where  it  caused 
great  commercial  distress,  and  where  the 
enemy  had  effected  a  landing  on  the  coast  of 


58        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

Maine.  The  celebrated  Hartford  Conven- 
tion, called  by  influential  Federalists,  to  con- 
fer upon  the  grievances  of  the  New  England 
States,  was  part  of  the  general  expression 
of  discontent.  Its  mysterious  proceedings 
were  misrepresented,  and  an  impression  was 
erroneously  given  of  its  intention  to  discuss 
and  advocate  secession.  During  this  war, 
too,  originated  the  odious  epithet  of  "  Blue 
Lights."  Commodore  Decatur  complained 
that  whenever  he  attempted  to  get  out  to  sea 
from  the  port  of  New  London,  Conn.,  under 
cover  of  the  night,  a  signal  of  blue  lights 
was  shown  by  the  residents  who  were  op- 
posed to  the  war.  A  rigid  inquiry  failed  to 
find  any  ground  for  this  charge,  but  the  term 
"  Blue  Light  Federalists,"  with  sly  reference 
to  the  Hartford  Convention,  galled  the  spirit 
of  the  survivors  and  heirs  of  that  party  for 
more  than  a  half-century  afterward. 

The  Treaty  of  Ghent,  of  which  Henry 
Clay  was  one  of  the  American  negotiators, 
concluded  the  war,  and  may  be  said  to  mark 
the  final  disappearance  of  the  Federalist 
party.  In  the  next  Presidential  election,  that 
of  1816,  James  Monroe  was  given  all  the 
electoral  votes  but  those  of  Massachusetts, 
Connecticut,  and  Delaware.  The  Federal- 
ists, who  carried  those  three  States,  sup- 


JAMES   MADISON. 
From  a  picture  by  Gilbert  Stuart-property  of  T.  Jefferson  Coolidge. 


FIRST  THINGS   IN   AMERICAN   POLITICS      6l 

ported  Rufus  King,  of  New  York,  but  they 
made  no  formal  nomination  for  the  Vice- 
Presidency.  Once  again  "  the  Virginia  in- 
fluence "  made  itself  felt  when,  four  years 
later,  Monroe  was  nominated  and  elected  for 
a  second  time,  receiving  an  almost  unani- 
mous vote,  the  Federalists  cutting  no  figure 
in  the  contest. 

For  the  first  time  since  the  first  election  of 
Washington  there  was  apparently  but  one 
party  in  the  United  States.  This  was  the 
beginning  of  that  fallacious  condition  which 
was  known  as  the  "_Era  of  Good  Feeling-/' 
under__wjii£h  new  parties  and  new  political 
Teuds  and  jealousies  were  taking  fojrrL 

Forthe  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  coun- 
try, the  idea  of  continental  supremacy,  now 
beginning  to  be  cherished  by  the  people,  was 
formulated  by  executive  authority.  Intoxi- 
cated by  the  military  glory  of  Jackson's  vic- 
tory at  New  Orleans,  the  American  people 
began  to  declare  that  none  but  Americans 
should  have  any  foothold  upon  the  continent. 
A  dream  of  continental  empire  slowly  dawned 
in  the  minds  of  men.  In  his  annual  message 
to  Congress,  December  2,  1823,  President 
Monroe  propounded  the  doctrine  that  "the 
peace  and  safety  of  the  United  States  re- 
quires that  there  shall  be  no  further  attempt 


62         SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

on  the  part  of  European  powers  to  extend 
their  jurisdiction  in  the  Western  Hemisphere, 
and  that  the  Republic  holds  itself  aloof  from 
any  participation  of  the  political  affairs  of  the 
Eastern  Hemisphere."  This  enunciation  of  the 
so-called  "  Monroe  Doctrine  "  did  not  attract 
much  attention  at  the  time.  Possibly  even  its 
author  was  not  aware  of  its  importance  ;  but, 
in  the  course  of  years,  the  doctrine  was  ac- 
cepted and  ratified  by  all  political  parties. 

For  the  first  time,  too,  during  an  electoral 
count,  objection  to  the  counting  of  the  vote 
of  a  State  was  made.  Missouri,  which  had 
been  admitted  to  the  family  of  States  under 
the  celebrated  compromise,  claimed  the  right 
to  cast  a  vote  in  the  Electoral  College.  The 
State  had  not  then  (February,  1821)  accepted 
the  condition  of  admission,  which  was  that 
it  should  never  interfere  with  the  constitu- 
tional privileges  of  citizens  of  other  States ; 
and  the  assembled  wisdom  of  Congress,  un- 
der the  guidance  of  Henry  Clay,  decided  that 
the  result  of  the  count  should  show  how 
many  votes  the  highest  candidate  would 
have  with  the  vote  of  Missouri,  and  how 
many  without  that  vote.  With  this  weak 
and  paltering  settlement  of  a  grave  ques- 
tion, the  dispute  was  ended,  and  a  new  era  in 
American  politics  began. 


II 

THE   PASSING   OF   THE   WHIGS 

IT  is  difficult  to  fix  the  precise  date  at  which 
the  party  known  as  the  Anti-Federalist 
was  renamed  the  Democratic.  When  the 
title  by  which  it  was  originally  called  became 
odious  (the  Federal  Constitution  having  be- 
come fixed  in  the  affections  and  confidence  of 
the  people),  Jefferson  gave  the  organization  a 
new  name.  In  a  letter  written  to  Washing- 
ton in  May,  1792,  the  father  of  the  so-called 
Jeffersonian  Democracy  said :  "  The  Repub- 
lican party,  who  wish  to  preserve  the  gov- 
ernment in  its  present  form,"  etc.  This  is 
the  first  use  of  the  name  under  which  Jeffer- 
son's party  was  known,  until  the  breaking 
out  of  the  French  Revolution  of  1793  ;  when, 
the  ultra-French  faction  in  the  United  States 
being  absorbed  into  the  Anti-Federalist  or 
Republican  party,  the  name  of  Democrat  was 
adopted.  The  so-called  Jacobins  (who  flour- 
ished exceedingly  in  Philadelphia),  enthusias- 
tically assumed  the  name  of  Democrat;  it 


64        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

was  a  link  that  bound  them  to  their  friends 
in  France ;  and  the  Federalists  employed  it 
as  a  term  of  reproach.  But  it  was  not  until 
Jefferson  had  quitted  the  stage  of  action  that 
the  distinctive  title  "  Democratic,"  was  given 
to  the  party  of  which  he  was  the  founder. 

As  for  the  political  principles  of  the  Dem- 
ocratic-Republican party,  originally  and  au- 
thoritatively set  forth,  we  must  look  for  them 
in  the  Kentucky  and  Virginia  resolutions,  as 
well  as  in  the  writings  of  Jefferson  himself. 
As  yet,  party  platforms  were  not.  Generally 
speaking,  the  Jeffersonian  party  was  pledged 
to  a  strict  construction  of  the  Constitution. 
In  the  opinion  of  its  leaders,  State  govern- 
ments were  the  foundation  of  the  American 
political  system  ;  the  powers  of  a  State  are 
unlimited,  except  by  State  constitutions  and 
the  Federal  Constitution ;  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment has  no  powers  other  than  those 
granted  to  it  by  the  Constitution,  with  the 
consent  of  the  several  States ;  and  whenever 
there  is  a  doubt  as  to  the  exact  location  of  a 
power,  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  said  power 
resides  in  the  State,  not  in  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment. In  other  words,  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment has  no  power  to  define  the  bounda. 
ries  of  its  authority  and  functions ;  that  right 
was  reserved  to  the  States.  And  the  seed  of 


GEORGE    CLINTON. 
From  a  painting  by  Ezra  Ames. 


THE  PASSING   OF   THE   WHIGS  67 

secession  was  wrapped  up  in  the  assumption 
that  the  Federal  Government  might  possibly 
assume  powers  that  had  not  been  granted  to 
it,  and  that  in  such  a  case  its  acts  should  be 
opposed  by  the  legislative,  executive,  and 
judicial  authority  of  the  States. 

Particularly,  and  in  addition  to  these  fun- 
damental principles,  the  Democratic-Repub- 
licans were  opposed  to  a  public  debt,  to  large 
expenditures  of  the  public  money  (and  inci- 
dentally to  internal  improvements),  to  a  large 
navy,  to  any  exercise  of  the  governmental 
functions  in  any  way  related  to  private  en- 
terprises or  interests,  and  to  life-terms  for  the 
judiciary.  They  favored  liberal  naturaliza- 
tion laws,  an  elective  judiciary,  and  direct 
taxes  on  the  people.  But  no  sooner  were 
they  in  the  possession  of  full  power  in  the 
government,  than  the  Democratic  -  Republi- 
cans made  an  abrupt  change  of  front  on  many 
of  the  cardinal  principles  of  their  political 
faith.  Although  strict  constructionists  of 
the  Constitution  when  that  instrument  had 
been  invoked  for  the  guidance  of  the  Nation- 
al Executive,  they  regarded  with  joyful  com- 
plaisance President  Jefferson's  purchase  of 
the  Louisiana  territory,  utterly  unauthorized 
and  arbitrary  though  it  was ;  they  calmly 
voted  to  recharter  the  United  States  Bank, 


68        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

although  Jefferson  had  declared  that  the  Na- 
tional Government  had  no  power  to  grant 
such  a  charter ;  and,  in  addition  to  these  and 
other  flagrant  invasions  of  State  rights,  they 
finally  voted  to  interdict  and  prohibit  all  the 
commerce  of  the  several  States  on  rivers, 
lakes,  and  the  ocean,  by  the  Embargo  and 
Non-intercourse  acts  of  1800-12. 

While  the  Federalist  party  remained  to 
combat  these  acts  by  a  feeble  protest,  they 
did  this,  although  it  must  be  said  that  the 
protestants  were  quite  as  inconsistent  as 
their  adversaries.  They  argued  against  the 
exercise  of  Federal  powers  which  they  had 
repeatedly  invoked  during  the  administra- 
tions of  Washington  and  Adams  ;  they  de- 
nied now  the  constitutionality  of  acts  which 
they  had  before  insisted  were  not  only 
necessary  but  constitutional.  The  fact  is 
apparent  that  there  was  growing  up  in  the 
triumphant  and  overwhelmingly  victorious 
Republican  party,  a  faction  which  was  deter- 
mined to  commit  the  party  to  a  policy  of 
loose  construction  of  the  Constitution.  It 
was  found  that  the  stricter  construction  was 
exceedingly  awkward  for  the  party  in  power, 
binding  it  as  it  did  to  certain  methods  that 
tied  the  dominant  party,  and  hampering  its 
functions  when  it  got  possession  of  the  gov- 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   WHIGS  69 

ernment.  The  peace-at-any-price  policy  of 
Jefferson  and  Madison  crippled  the  nation 
while  it  was  being  hurried  into  war ;  and  the 
suspension  of  American  commerce  not  only 
angered  the  people  of  the  Middle  States,  but 
eventually  blighted  with  poverty  the  agri- 
cultural States,  which  were  supposed  to  be 
indifferent  to  the  effects  of  the  Embargo. 
The  neglect  of  the  navy  and  the  failure 
to  provide  means  of  defence,  were  the  legiti- 
mate outcome  of  a  strict  construction  of  the 
Constitution.  The  Embargo,  arbitrary  and 
undemocratic  as  it  was,  was  only  one  of 
many  acts  which  proved  how  incompetent 
the  dominant  party  was  to  carry  on  a  war 
which  was  eventually  concluded  by  a  peace 
in  which  not  one  of  the  objects  for  which  the 
war  was  begun  was  secured. 

During  the  deceptive  peacefulness  which 
bears  the  title  of  the  "  Era  of  Good  Feel- 
ing," when  President  Monroe  was  making  a 
triumphal  progress  under  the  influence  of 
which  all  the  people  were  jubilantly  embrac- 
ing each  other  and  singing,  "  Let  party  names 
no  more,"  the  loose  constructionists  of  the 
Democratic -Republican  organization  were 
silently  arraying  themselves  for  their  first 
campaign.  Henry  Clay,  the  Mill  Boy  of  the 
Slashes,  who  was  born  in  a  Virginia  log- 


/O        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

house,  and  who  started  in  life  as  a  clerk  in  a 
retail  store  in  Richmond,  had  by  the  sheer 
force  of  his  genius  worked  himself  up  to  a 
commanding  position  in  the  front  rank  of 
Kentucky  lawyers,  had  already  served  part 
of  a  term  in  the  United  States  Senate  (begin- 
ning it  before  he  was  of  legal  age  to  hold 
that  office),  and  was  now,  in  the  first  of  his 
five  terms  of  office  as  Speaker  of  the  House 
of  Representatives,  the  foreordained  leader 
of  the  Loose  Constructionists. 

This  brilliant,  dashing,  and  entirely  self- 
possessed  young  man  took  a  leading  part  in 
Congressional  debates.  He  advocated  inter- 
nal improvements  at  the  national  expense,  a 
protective  tariff,  and  a  war  of  reprisals  that 
should  carry  American  aggression  into  the 
British  possessions  in  Canada.  Exercising 
his  functions  as  Speaker,  he  so  constituted 
the  standing  committees  of  the  House  that 
the  war  party  of  young  Republicans,  of  which 
he  and  John  C.  Calhoun  were  leaders,  virtu- 
ally controlled  the  legislation  of  that  body. 
Later  on,  when  Clay  and  his  comrades  had 
seen  the  inglorious  end  of  a  war  into  which 
they  had  hurried  the  irresolute  Madison, 
they  were  partially  consoled  by  the  battle  of 
New  Orleans,  which  shed  a  fleeting  lustre 
over  the  American  arms  in  the  closing  scene. 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   WHIGS  /I 

Clay,  who  had  been  one  of  the  negotiators 
of  the  Treaty  of  Ghent,  gladly  said  that  An- 
drew Jackson's  victory  (fought  after  the  con- 
clusion of  the  treaty  of  peace)  made  it  possi- 
ble for  the  American  envoys  to  go  to  London 
without  humiliation  of  spirit.  And,  still  a 
Republican,  the  gallant  young  Kentuckian 
entered  the  scrub  race  for  the  presidency  in 
1824.  His  competitors  were  John  Quincy 
Adams,  then  Secretary  of  State,  W.  H. 
Crawford,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and 
Andrew  Jackson,  the  hero  of  New  Orleans, 
with  whom  Clay  was  to  have  many  a  fierce 
bout  before  either  laid  down  his  arms.  These 
were  all  Republicans,  or  Democratic-Repub- 
licans, if  you  please,  and  the  contest  for  the 
presidency  had  now,  in  the  absence  of  party 
organization,  degenerated  into  a  personal 
squabble  ;  and  the  squabble  became  disgrace- 
ful when  the  wrathful  Jackson,  disappointed 
in  winning  the  prize,  subsequently  denounced 
the  "  bribery  and  corruption  "  by  which,  as 
he  averred,  he  had  been  cheated  out  of  an 
election. 

Clay  and  Adams  favored  a  loose  construc- 
tion of  the  Constitution  ;  Crawford  and  Jack- 
son were  strict  constructionists ;  but  Jackson 
favored  a  protective  tariff,  and  Calhoun,  who 
was  an  almost  unopposed  candidate  for  the 


72        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

vice-presidency,  was  a  loose  constructionist 
so  far  as  internal  improvements  were  con- 
cerned, but  an  ardent  State  Rights  man  and 
a  strict  constructionist  where  other  mat- 
ters were  involved.  Monroe  had  vetoed  the 
Cumberland  Road  bill,  thereby  still  further 
unifying  the  loose  constructionists  and  em- 
barrassing the  Republican  party ;  and  when 
Clay  emerged  from  the  scrub  race  for  the 
presidency,  fourth  in  the  list  of  candidates 
and  therefore  ineligible  as  a  candidate  in  the 
election — then  thrown  into  the  House — his 
final  and  irreparable  alienation  from  the  Jack- 
sonian  faction  actually  began.  The  new  par- 
ties were  slowly  taking  shape. 

Unfortunately  for  Clay,  it  had  become  a 
tradition  that  the  office  of  Secretary  of  State 
was  the  training  -  post  for  the  presidency. 
Every  Secretary  had  been  eventually  trans- 
lated to  the  Chair  of  State,  except  in  rare 
instances  where  appointment  had  been  made 
to  tide  over  an  emergency.  Clay,  as  Speaker 
of  the  House,  was  a  greater  and  more  power- 
ful man  than  Clay,  Secretary  of  State,  could 
possibly  be.  But,  with  the  presidential  bee 
still  buzzing  in  his  bonnet,  he  consented  to 
take  the  State  Department  portfolio  from 
Adams,  whose  election  by  the  House  he  had 
so  powerfully  promoted ;  and  he  thereby  in- 


JAMES   MONROE. 

From    a   painting    by    Gilbert    Stuart — now   the    property  of   T.  Jefferson 
Coolidge. 


THE   PASSING   OF  THE   WHIGS  /5 

vited  the  undying  enmity  of  Andrew  Jack- 
son, and  laid  himself  liable  to  the  charge  of 
making  a  corrupt  bargain  when  he  support- 
ed for  the  presidency  John  Quincy  Adams, 
whose  fitness  for  the  place  Clay  had  all 
along  declared  to  be  far  greater  than  that  of 
either  Crawford  or  Jackson.  Nobody  seemed 
to  consider  that  Clay,  who  was  an  advo- 
cate of  a  loose  construction  of  the  Consti- 
tution, would  naturally  favor  the  only  loose 
constructionist  who  was  in  the  field  after  his 
own  relegation  to  the  fourth  and  hopeless 
place  on  the  list  of  eligibles. 

Although  Clay  angrily  denied  all  partici- 
pation in  any  bargain  for  Adams's  elevation 
to  the  presidency,  and  many  eminent  per- 
sons, Chief-Justice  Marshall,  Justice  Story, 
Daniel  Webster,  and  Lewis  Cass  had  joined 
in  giving  him  what  modern  backbiters  would 
call  <;  a  coat  of  whitewash,"  the  "  bargain  and 
corruption "  allegation  would  not  down. 
Jackson,  who  had  at  first  been  inclined  to  let 
the  matter  drop,  was  awakened  to  a  sense  of 
his  wrongs  by  the  fiery  and  acrimonious  ad- 
dresses with  which  he  was  greeted  on  his 
way  to  his  Tennessee  hermitage ;  and  Clay 
on  his  homeward  way,  too,  was  obliged  to 
stop  here  and  there  to  explain,  deprecate, 
and  argue.  For  many  a  long  year  this  dis- 


76        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

tressing  business  clung  to  his  skirts,  a  per- 
sistent burr,  irritating  his  sensitive  nature 
and  obstructing  his  political  progress. 

All  these  things  created  party  factions ;  for 
we  must  bear  in  mind  the  fact  that  there 
was  as  yet  but  one  party,  the  Democratic- 
Republican,  of  which  every  one  of  the  lead- 
ing statesmen  of  the  United  States  was  a 
member  in  good  standing.  Adams,  whose 
ill-advised  invitation  of  Clay  to  a  place  at  his 
council-board  had  given  color  to  the  charge 
in  which  both  were  implicated,  still  further 
estranged  the  friends  of  Jackson  (and  friends 
of  other  disappointed  statesmen,  perhaps), 
and  he  now  proceeded  to  alienate  more 
surely  from  him  the  strict  constructionists. 
Generally,  he  had  inclined  toward  a  policy 
which  represented  a  disposition  to  interpret 
loosely  the  Constitution  when  the  powers  of 
the  National  Government  were  to  be  defined. 
Now  he  proposed  a  great  variety  of  "  in- 
ternal improvements,"  some  of  which,  ap- 
parently modelled  on  the  lines  of  the  state 
institutions  of  learning  and  science  patron- 
ized by  monarchical  governments,  frightened 
even  Clay  and  other  members  of  the  Cabi- 
net. To  crown  all,  the  President  appointed 
commissioners  to  a  congress  of  American 
republics  to  meet  at  Panama  for  the  purpose 


THE   PASSING   OF   THE   WHIGS  77 

of  concerting  measures  for  mutual  protec- 
tion, thereby  committing  the  United  States 
to  the  undertaking,  and  disregarding  the 
right  of  Congress  to  act  in  a  matter  so  im- 
portant. 

It  was  this  latter  incident  that  drew  Clay 
into  the  duel  which  he  subsequently  fought 
with  John  Randolph.  The  slave-holding  in- 
terest had  now  become  tolerably  solid.  The 
sudden  breaking  out  of  the  pro-slavery  feel- 
ing over  the  proposal  to  exclude  slavery 
from  Missouri  (which  Jefferson  said  had 
alarmed  him  "  like  a  fire-bell  in  the  night  ") 
not  only  disclosed  the  determination  of  the 
slave-holding  States  to  resist  any  attempt  to 
restrict  the  cherished  institution,  but  it  acted 
as  a  synthetic  process ;  it  caused  the  instant 
coherence  of  all  the  elements  of  the  Repub- 
lican party  that  were  divided  on  other  lines, 
but  were  fully  in  sympathy  on  this  single 
issue — slavery  must  not  be  touched  by  an 
unfriendly  hand.  The  debates  on  the  Pan- 
ama Convention,  while  they  served  as  a 
muster  of  the  anti  -  Administration  forces, 
disclosed  the  fact  that  there  was  a  faction  in 
the  Republican  party  that  was  unalterably 
opposed  to  any  interference  with  slavery. 
Certain  of  the  South  American  republics  that 
were  to  be  represented  in  the  Panama  Con- 


78        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

vention  had  already  become  "  abolitionists  " 
by  the  enfranchisement  of  their  slaves.  Oth- 
ers had  men  of  a  dark  color  among  their  leg- 
islators and  generals.  The  proposition  to 
meet  these  persons  in  an  international  coun- 
cil was  odious.  When  Randolph  commented, 
with  his  usual  vituperativeness,  upon  this 
proposed  union  of  American  Republics  in 
convention,  he  went  out  of  his  way  to  at- 
tack Clay,  whom  he  hated,  and  coarsely 
bracketed  Adams  and  Clay  together  as  "  the 
coalition  of  Blifil  and  Black  George — the 
combination,  unheard  of  until  now,  of  the 
Puritan  and  the  blackleg."  This  was  the 
casus  belli  that  led  up  to  the  duel.  No  blood 
was  shed ;  and  Thomas  H.  Benton,  who 
described  the  encounter  with  undisguised 
zest,  in  his  "  Thirty  Years'  View,"  spoke  of 
it  as  "  about  the  last  high-toned  duel,"  as 
well  as  "  the  highest-toned,"  which  he  ever 
witnessed. 

Under  such  conditions  as  these  were 
formed  the  factions  of  "  Republicans  "  and 
"National  Republicans,"  "  Democratic  -Re- 
publicans," "  Adams  and  Clay  Republicans," 
and  "  Jackson  Republicans  ;  "  for  all  the  dis- 
sidents still  clung  to  the  old  name  and  title. 
Under  such  conditions  was  the  Whig  party 
born.  For  although  high  tariff  and  low 


THE   PASSING   OF  THE   WHIGS  79 

tariff,  bank  and  no-bank,  the  extension  of 
slavery  and  the  restriction  of  slavery,  for  a 
time  continued  to  divide  the  heirs  and  as- 
signs of  Jeffersonian  democracy  into  jarring 
factions,  the  schism  already  open  was  too 
deep  for  healing. 

John  Quincy  Adams  was  cold,  reserved, 
and  a  purist  of  the  purists.  When  he  and 
Andrew  Jackson  met  at  a  levee  in  Washing- 
ton, after  their  memorable  contest  for  the 
presidency,  the  crowd,  seeing  the  two  men 
approach,  fell  back  in  mute  expectancy  ;  it 
was  possible  that  there  might  be  a  scene. 
But  the  defeated  Jackson,  with  fine  urban- 
ity of  manner,  addressed  the  President-elect 
in  most  cordial  terms ;  and  the  victorious 
Adams,  failing  to  respond  to  the  proffered 
olive-branch,  chilled  the  ardent  hero  of  New 
Orleans  with  formal  iciness.  Adams,  if  he 
saw  that  he  had  created  a  new  party,  failed 
to  make  anything  of  his  opportunities,  and, 
while  he  persisted  in  putting  forth  his  favor- 
ite theories  of  government,  took  no  pains  to 
conciliate  Congressional  or  other  form  of 
public  opinion  to  secure  the  advance  of  those 
theories  into  practice.  During  Adams's  term 
of  office,  the  Administration  had  only  a  small 
and  diminishing  majority  in  Congress.  If 
Henry  Clay,  with  his  winning  manner,  his 


80        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

fascinating  address,  and  his  happy  faculty 
for  compromise,  had  then  been  in  the  presi- 
dential chair,  what  wonders  for  the  new 
party  he  might  have  accomplished  ! 

Nevertheless,  the  loose  constructionists, 
who  were  to  some  extent  then  aided  by  log- 
rolling and  by  the  Western  men,  were  able 
to  enact  the  tariff  of  1828,  afterward  known 
as  the  "  tariff  of  abominations,"  a  measure  so 
extreme  in  its  protection  that  mutterings  of 
nullification  were  again  heard  in  the  South  ; 
and  there  was  a  general  overhauling  of  the 
Virginia  and  Kentucky  resolutions  by  those 
who  fell  back  on  the  "  reserved  rights  of  the 
States"  whenever  the  aspect  of  things  did 
not  please  them.  The  constitutionality  of 
internal  improvements  at  the  public  expense 
also  came  up  for  discussion  during  this  ad- 
ministration, and  although  Congress  did  not 
indorse  Adams's  extravagant  notions  of  a 
paternal  government,  unusually  large  ap- 
propriations were  voted.  Party  feeling  ran 
high,  and  the  debates  in  Congress  and  in  the 
newspapers  verged  on  indecency  in  their 
malignity  and  venom. 

But  nothing  in  modern  times  can  equal  the 
virulence  and  the  apparent  exacerbation  of 
the  presidential  campaign  of  1828,  when  An- 
drew Jackson  was  formally  entered  in  the 


JOHN    C.  CALHOUN. 
From  a  picture  by  King  at  the  Corcoran  Art  Gallery. 


THE   PASSING   OF   THE   WHIGS  83 

presidential  race  against  John  Quincy  Adams. 
For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  Re- 
public the  contest  assumed  a  sectional  aspect. 
The  Democratic-Republicans  had  nominated 
Andrew  Jackson,  of  Tennessee,  and  John  C. 
Calhoun,  of  South  Carolina;  the  National 
Republican  nominees  were  John  Quincy 
Adams,  of  Massachusetts,  and  Richard  Rush, 
of  Pennsylvania.  For  the  first  time  in  our 
history,  too,  the  presidential  electors  were 
chosen  by  popular  vote,  South  Carolina  alone 
holding  out  for  the  old  method  of  election  by 
the  Legislature.  And  by  this  time  the  sys- 
tem of  National  nominating  conventions  had 
come  into  use,  bringing  with  it  the  machine 
and  the  machinery  of  politics.  In  Jackson's 
candidacy  there  were  abundant  signs  of  that 
"working  up  public  sentiment"  that  has 
since  given  us  literary  bureaus  and  similar 
appliances  of  a  presidential  campaign. 

Personal  abuse  was  rife.  Adams,  the  im- 
peccable, the  frigidly  just,  was  accused  of  a 
variety  of  crimes,  one  of  the  least  of  which 
was  that  he  acted  as  a  procurer  for  the  Czar 
of  Russia.  Clay  was  branded  as  an  unprin- 
cipled adventurer,  a  professional  gambler,  a 
libertine,  and  an  accomplice  of  Aaron  Burr. 
Jackson  was  stigmatized  as  a  murderer,  a 
duelling  manslayer,  a  cock -fighter,  and  a 


84        SHORT  STUDIES  IN  PARTY  POLITICS 

turf-sportsman.  One  of  the  bitterest  attacks 
upon  him  was  made  by  Jesse  Benton,  brother 
of  the  great  Thomas.  Jesse,  although  his 
brother  had  made  his  peace  with  Jackson, 
after  years  of  hostility,  still  writhed  with  an- 
ger over  the  duel  he  had  fought  with  "  the 
old  hero  "  in  the  streets  of  Nashville,  fifteen 
years  before,  and  he  pursued  him  with  a 
pamphlet  in  which  thirty-two  separate  and 
distinct  crimes  and  misdemeanors  were 
charged  against  him.  These  included  only 
acts  for  which  Jackson  himself  was  responsi- 
ble. It  was  reserved  for  a  Washington  news- 
paper to  give  currency  to  a  cruel  slander  re- 
lating to  the  private  life  of  the  wife  of  the 
General.  The  lady  had  been  divorced  from 
a  former  husband  before  she  re  -  married, 
and  both  she  and  Jackson  were  horrified, 
later  on,  by  the  discovery  that  that  divorce 
was  illegal.  The  matter  was  rectified  and 
the  couple  were  lawfully  joined  in  wedlock, 
although  they  had  innocently  gone  through 
previous  proceedings  which  they  had  sup- 
posed lawful.  Jackson's  wife  died  just  be- 
fore he  was  first  inaugurated  President ;  and 
with  the  wound  still  rankling  in  his  heart,  he 
refused  to  meet  the  retiring  President,  whom 
he  held  responsible  for  the  publication  of  the 
slander  of  Mrs.  Jackson.  When  the  trium- 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  WHIGS  85 

phant  hero  was  on  his  way  to  be  sworn  in  at 
the  Capitol,  his  predecessor  in  office  was  soli- 
tarily beginning  his  journey  homeward.  The 
Whig  party,  as  yet  unnamed,  had  been  de- 
feated, Jackson  having  received  one  hundred 
and  seventy-eight  electoral  votes  against  the 
eighty-three  cast  for  Adams;  Calhoun  had 
one  hundred  and  seventy-one  votes ;  Rush, 
eighty-three.  Calhoun  had  been  deprived  of 
seven  votes  (thrown  away  on  one  William 
Smith,  of  South  Carolina)  by  the  machina- 
tions of  W.  H.  Crawford. 

Now  the  reign  of  "  the  people  "  had  come. 
Jackson  represented  the  accession  of  "  the 
great  unwashed  "  to  power,  after  the  breed 
of  Revolutionary  statesmen  and  the  favorites 
of  the  Virginia  dynasty  had  passed  away. 
Jackson  was  wofully  deficient  in  education 
and  was  grotesquely  unfamiliar  with  the  ru- 
dimentary principles  of  statecraft.  He  was 
wilful,  easily  deceived  by  the  representations 
of  men  in  whom  he  might  trust,  passionate, 
obstinate  to  the  last  degree,  a  fierce  hater, 
and  never  averse  to  "  taking  the  responsibil- 
ity," however  complicated  the  proceeding  or 
however  limited  his  knowledge  of  the  exi- 
gencies of  the  situation.  But  his  personal  in- 
tegrity was  absolute,  unquestionable.  In  two 
traits  he  resembled  Abraham  Lincoln:  his 


86        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

honesty,  and  his  identification  as  a  man  of 
the  people.  But  only  in  these  two  respects 
do  the  two  men  appear  alike. 

The  Old  Hero,  who  was  now  in  his  sixty- 
third  year,  was  supposed,  as  Daniel  Webster 
humorously  said,  to  have  rescued  the  coun- 
try from  some  great  but  undefined  danger. 
The  dear  people  swarmed  to  Washington  in 
vast  numbers,  intent  on  two  things — a  sight 
of  the  hero,  and  a  grab  at  the  offices.  For  it 
had  somehow  gone  out  that  there  was  to  be 
that  clean  sweep  which  has  since  become  a 
custom,  but  was  then  a  threat  in  suspense. 
One  writer  says  of  the  multitudes,  "  It  was 
like  the  inundation  of  the  northern  barba- 
rians into  Rome,  save  that  the  tumultuous 
tide  came  in  from  a  different  point  of  the 
compass.  The  West  and  the  South  seemed 
to  have  precipitated  themselves  upon  the 
North  and  overwhelmed  it."  At  the  first 
presidential  levee  in  the  White  House,  the 
mob  which  poured  into  the  mansion  to  gaze 
upon  the  Hero  and  dip  into  his  barrels  of 
punch,  was  so  disorderly  and  riotous  that 
tubs  of  the  tipple  were  carried  out  of  doors 
to  entice  a  division  of  the  hungry  and  thirsty ; 
and  broken  glasses,  soiled  furniture,  and  wet 
carpets  proclaimed  the  advent  of  the  sover- 
eign people. 


87 

From  this  time  we  date  that  quadrennial 
division  of  the  spoils  of  office  which  has  unto 
this  day  engaged  the  attention  of  the  Ameri- 
can people.  Jackson  so  composed  his  cabi- 
net as  to  make  his  hostility  to  Clay  as  pro- 
nounced as  possible.  It  was  as  if  a  President 
should  seek  to  gall  his  rivals  and  enemies 
by  calling  to  his  council-board  a  man  whose 
only  fitness  for  the  place  was  the  disfavor  in 
which  he  might  be  held  by  the  aforesaid  ri- 
vals and  enemies.  We  have  seen  that  Jeffer- 
son was  the  first  President  to  depart  from 
the  tradition  of  making  fitness,  honesty,  and 
capability  the  only  tests  in  official  appoint- 
ment. But  the  arbitrary  political  changes 
ordered  by  Jefferson,  unprecedentedly  nu- 
merous though  they  were,  were  as  nothing 
when  compared  with  the  wild  sweep  or- 
dered by  Jackson.  Daniel  Webster  esti- 
mated these  at  two  thousand  or  more  ;  and 
this  was  a  large  number,  if  we  regard  the 
smallness  of  the  Federal  establishment  in 
1829.  But  it  was  William  L.  Marcy,  a  Sen- 
ator from  New  York,  who  gave  currency, 
three  years  later,  to  the  saying  so  often  at- 
tributed to  Jackson,  "  To  the  victors  belong 
the  spoils."  Marcy  was  defending  Van  Bu- 
ren  and  the  Albany  politicians  when  he  said- 
"  They  see  nothing  wrong  in  the  rule  that  to 


88        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

the  victors  belong  the  spoils  of  the  enemy." 
And  to  these  illustrious  Democrats — Jack- 
son, Van  Buren,  and  Marcy — we  owe  the 
formal  setting  up  of  the  spoils  system. 

Another  of  Jackson's  innovations  was  the 
discontinuance  of  cabinet  councils.  His  im- 
perious spirit  irked  even  the  nominal  re- 
straint of  advice  ;  and  although  he  may  have 
consulted  with  a  few  individuals  of  his  cabi- 
net, more  especially  the  wily  and  astute 
"  Matty,"  as  he  called  Martin  Van  Buren, 
Secretary  of  State,  he  had  little  to  do  with 
others.  The  Mrs.  Eaton  scandal  was  one  of 
the  causes  of  the  final  disruption  of  the  never 
very  harmonious  cabinet.  Mrs.  Eaton  was 
the  wife  of  the  Secretary  of  War ;  her  maid- 
en name  was  Peg  O'Neal,  and  her  reputa- 
tion had  been  trifled  with  by  Washington 
gossips  during  her  widowhood  as  Mrs.  Tim- 
berlake  ;  she  was  given  a  cold  shoulder  by 
the  ladies  of  the  national  capital,  and  when 
the  wives  of  cabinet  ministers  refused  to  re- 
ceive or  recognize  her,  President  Jackson 
(who  had  thrown  himself  into  the  unsavory 
quarrel  with  characteristic  heat)  made  social 
recognition  of  the  lady  a  test  of  loyalty  to 
him,  if  not  to  the  Government  of  the  United 
States.  In  his  blind  and  unreasoning  fury, 
he  banned  friends  and  foes,  foreigners  and 


idteEasfeffiaajteS&i^^ 


HENRY    CLAY. 
From  a  photograph  by  Rockwood  of  an  old  daguerreotype 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  WHIGS  91 

Americans  alike,  in  his  determination  to 
compel  respect  for  the  hapless  woman  who 
had  won  his  dangerous  but  honest  and  chiv- 
alrous friendship. 

Jackson's  dislike  for  Calhoun,  which  was 
bound  to  appear  later  in  a  more  serious  cri- 
sis than  this  petty  scandal,  was  increased  by 
his  discovery  that  Calhoun,  while  Secretary 
of  War  in  Monroe's  cabinet,  had  disapproved 
of  the  course  of  General  Jackson  when  he 
invaded  Florida  and  carried  matters  there 
with  a  high  hand — as  if  he  were  an  imperial 
conqueror  and  not  the  military  servant  of  a 
republic.  For  a  time,  at  least,  the  cohorts  of 
Calhoun  and  Clay  were  brought  together  by 
the  well-nigh  insane  hatred  in  which  Jackson 
held  those  two  chieftains.  Jackson  regarded 
Clay  as  the  inciter  of  ill-reports  about  Mrs. 
Jackson  and  Mrs.  Eaton.  Mrs.  Calhoun  would 
not  receive  Mrs.  Eaton,  and  her  husband  had 
criticised  the  course  of  the  general  as  an  in- 
vader of  Spanish  territory.  From  such  sordid 
materials  may  political  crises  be  evolved  ! 

It  was  Jackson  who  gave  us  the  invention 
of  the  "  Kitchen  Cabinet,"  an  institution  that 
outlasted  his  day.  Three  newspaper  men — 
Duff  Green,  Amos  Kendall,  and  Isaac  Hill 
—were  the  core  of  this  junta.  William  B. 
Lewis,  related  to  Jackson  by  marriage,  was 


92        SHORT  STUDIES  IN  PARTY  POLITICS 

a  fourth  member,  and  when  Duff  Green  fell 
from  grace  and  went  over  to  Calhoun,  Fran- 
cis P.  Blair  became  his  legitimate  successor. 
These  men  influenced  the  unconscious  Jack- 
son and  fabricated  many  statements  which 
the  honest  old  hero  employed  with  great 
zeal  as  facts.  It  was  Jackson  who  gave  us 
that  immortal  declaration  — "  Our  Federal 
Union  :  it  must  be  preserved."  It  was  Cal- 
houn, who,  on  that  same  occasion  (a  Jeffer- 
sonian  birthday  dinner  in  Washington),  an- 
swered Jackson's  challenge  with  the  toast, 
"  The  Union,  next  to  our  liberty  the  most 
dear ;  may  we  all  remember  that  it  can  only 
be  preserved  by  respecting  the  rights  of  the 
States,  and  distributing  equally  the  benefit 
and  the  burden  of  the  Union." 

Jackson,  too,  invented  the  "  pocket  veto," 
the  first  example  of  which  was  shown  when 
he  availed  himself  of  his  privilege  to  keep  in 
his  figurative  pocket  for  ten  days  a  bill  au- 
thorizing a  government  subscription  to  a 
Kentucky  toll-road,  during  which  interval 
Congress  adjourned  and  left  the  bill  to  die, 
where  it  was.  This  expedient  was  subse- 
quently useful  to  President  Jackson.  It  was 
resorted  to  by  President  Lincoln,  in  1864, 
when  the  Wade  -  Davis  reconstruction  bill 
was  similarly  put  to  death. 


THE   PASSING   OF   THE   WHIGS  93 

It  is  not  necessary  here  to  trace  the  his- 
tory of  Jackson's  war  on  the  United  States 
Bank,  except  to  recall  the  fact  that  one  of 
the  arguments  which  Jackson  used  against 
the  bank  was  borrowed  from  Henry  Clay, 
who,  earlier  in  his  career,  was  a  consistent 
opponent  of  that  institution.  We  may  re- 
call, too,  with  amusement,  Benton's  long  and 
chivalrous  fight  for  the  expunging  of  the 
Senate's  resolutions  of  censure  of  President 
Jackson  for  his  course  in  ordering  the  re- 
moval of  deposits  in  the  United  States  Bank. 
It  was  not  until  the  last  days  of  Jackson's 
second  term  of  office  that  the  indefatigable 
Benton,  who  provisioned  the  Senate  cham- 
ber as  if  for  a  long  siege,  finally  dragooned 
and  wheedled  the  senators  into  adopting  the 
famous  Expunging  Resolutions,  and  the  jour- 
nal was  brought  in,  and  broad  black  lines 
were  drawn  around  the  now  historic  entry. 

Clay's  misfortune  was  his  identification 
with  the  bank  war  when,  in  1832,  he  became 
a  candidate  for  the  presidency  against  An- 
drew Jackson,  and  virtually  stood  on  a  plat- 
form pledged  to  support  the  United  States 
Bank  scheme.  The  Jackson  men  were  not 
only  active  and  numerous,  but  they  had  "  a 
good  cry  "  to  go  to  the  country  with,  and 
the  popular  response  to  the  convention  that 


94        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

nominated  Clay  and  eulogized  the  bank  was 
emphatic  and  overwhelming.  One  of  the 
earliest  champions  of  a  protective  tariff,  ad- 
vocating a  scheme  of  finance  to  which  he 
gave  the  taking  title  of  "  the  American  sys- 
tem," Clay  permitted,  even  advocated,  the 
dragging  of  the  bank  question  into  the  can- 
vass for  the  purpose  of  alienating  from  Jack- 
son the  vote  of  Pennsylvania,  that  State  be- 
ing the  home  of  the  banking  institution. 

In  the  presidential  election  of  1832,  we 
must  note  one  of  those  curious  cross-currents 
in  American  politics,  which  from  time  to 
time  have  amused  us  and  puzzled  foreign 
observers — the  Anti-Masonic  diversion.  Be- 
ginning in  Genesee  County,  N.  Y.,  with  the 
alleged  murder  of  William  Morgan,  in  1826, 
by  Freemasons  who  suspected  him  of  writ- 
ing a  book  revealing  the  secrets  of  their  or- 
der, the  popular  feeling  excited  against  the 
Freemasons  finally  assumed  a  political  bias 
under  the  skilful  manipulation  of  certain 
party  managers.  Local  candidates  stood  or 
fell  as  they  were  opposed  to  or  were  in  favor 
of  Freemasonry  ;  and  in  due  course  of  time 
there  appeared,  as  leaders  of  the  new  party, 
William  H.  Seward,  Millard  Fillmore,  and 
Thurlow  Weed,  the  last  of  whom  gave  to 
the  world  of  politics  the  phrase  "  a  good 


THE   PASSING   OF  THE   WHIGS  95 

enough  Morgan  until  after  election,"  some 
such  remark  being  made  when  doubts  were 
thrown  on  the  statement  that  the  body  found 
floating  in  Niagara  River  was  that  of  the  ab- 
ducted and  murdered  William  Morgan.  In 
1830,  the  movement  was  strong  enough  to 
excite  the  New  Yorkers  with  hopes  of  carry- 
ing a  national  election  on  that  issue — opposi- 
tion to  Freemasonry. 

So,  when  party  lines  were  again  drawn  for 
a  presidential  campaign  in  1832,  the  Anti- 
Masons  were  in  the  field  with  William  Wirt, 
of  Maryland,  and  Amos  Ellmaker,  of  Penn- 
sylvania, as  their  candidates  for  President 
and  Vice  -  President.  Mr.  Seward,  then  a 
young  man  in  politics  and  in  years,  had  pre- 
viously gone  to  Massachusetts  to  endeavor 
to  induce  John  Quincy  Adams  to  re-enter 
politics  as  the  presidential  candidate  of  the 
Anti-Masons.  Mr.  Adams's  reception  of  Mr. 
Seward  was  characteristic.  The  chilled  am- 
bassador from  Auburn  records  that  he  could 
then  understand  why  Adams  had  gone  out 
of  public  life  with  so  few  friends.  Mr.  Wirt 
received  only  the  electoral  vote  of  Vermont 
in  that  canvass.  This  was  the  first  and  last 
appearance  of  the  Anti-Masons  in  the  open 
field  of  National  politics.  But  they  were 
able,  in  1835,  and  again  in  1839,  to  frighten 


96        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

the  Whig  nominating  conventions  of  those 
years  into  dropping  Clay,  who  was  a  Free- 
mason, and  putting  up,  instead,  William 
Henry  Harrison,  who,  though  not  an  Anti- 
Mason  by  political  affiliation,  was  not  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Masonic  order.  In  the  election 
of  1832  all  parties  put  forward  candidates 
named  by  National  conventions ;  but  the 
Democrats,  as  if  they  regarded  Andrew 
Jackson  as  their  sufficient  platform,  pre- 
sented the  hero  to  the  people,  without  a 
word  of  comment  or  a  pledge  of  policy. 

Jackson  once  more  inaugurated,  and  the 
bank  war  taken  up  with  renewed  spirit,  an- 
other political  crisis  came  when  South  Caro- 
lina, pushing  to  their  utmost  the  doctrines 
enunciated  in  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky 
resolutions,  declared  that  the  tariff  of  1828 
(with  its  modifications  of  1832)  was  unconsti- 
tutional, null  and  void,  and  should  be  dis- 
regarded. Jackson  made  preparations  to 
execute  the  provisions  of  the  customs  laws, 
and  to  hang  the  leaders  of  the  conspiracy  for 
treason.  Clay,  the  Great  Pacificator,  dex- 
terously interposed  with  his  famous  com- 
promise tariff  of  1833,  and  again  "  the  country 
was  saved."  It  may  be  remembered  that  the 
bill  passed  by  Congress  to  aid  in  the  enforce- 
ment of  the  tariff  law  was  called  the  Force 


THE   PASSING  OF   THE   WHIGS  97 

Bill,  although  in  South  Carolina  it  was 
known  as  "  the  Bloody  Bill."  In  later  days, 
a  bill  to  provide  for  Federal  supervision  of 
elections  in  certain  contingencies  has  been 
stigmatized  in  like  manner,  but  without  the 
sanguinary  epithet. 

We  may  recall,  too,  the  fact  that  Calhoun 
was  a  protectionist  in  1816;  in  1831  he  de- 
nounced the  protective  principle  as  unconsti- 
tutional and  oppressive  to  the  South.  So, 
too,  Clay,  who  had,  in  1810,  furnished  An- 
drew Jackson  with  anti-bank  arguments, 
found  it  convenient  and  consistent,  in  1828, 
to  make  the  cause  of  the  bank  his  own.  And 
Daniel  Webster,  on  nearly  every  one  of  these 
burning  questions  of  the  time,  changed  his 
godlike  front  with  ease. 

It  was  in  February,  1834,  that  James  Wat- 
son Webb,  of  the  New  York  Courier  and  En- 
quirer, hit  upon  the  title  of  Whig  for  the 
National  Republican  party  brought  into  ex- 
istence by  the  administration  of  John  Quincy 
Adams  and  led  by  Henry  Clay.  The  name 
was  suggested,  as  Webb  averred,  by  the  fact 
that  the  party  was  pledged  to  resist  arbitra- 
ry government,  as  the  English  Whigs  had 
resisted  royalist  tyranny.  It  was  sought, 
though  unsuccessfully,  to  brand  the  Demo- 
cratic-Republicans with  the  odious  name  of 
7 


98        SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

Tories.  "  The  Tories,"  said  Clay,  "  were  the 
supporters  of  executive  power,  of  royal  pre- 
rogative, of  the  maxim  that  the  king  can  do 
no  wrong ;  "  the  Whigs,  h'e  added,  "  were  the 
champions  of  liberty,  the  friends  of  the  peo- 
ple." What  more  appropriate  distinction 
than  this  could  be  made  between  the  Jackson 
men  and  the  followers  of  the  Great  Com- 
moner? The  nickname  "  Locofoco  "  stuck  to 
the  Democrats  with  more  adhesiveness  than 
the  epithet  borrowed  from  English  politics. 
Anti-Bank  Democrats  of  New  York,  holding 
a  meeting  in  Tammany  Hall,  in  October, 
1835,  were  annoyed  by  the  bank  faction  of 
their  own  party,  who,  failing  to  get  posses- 
sion of  the  meeting,  turned  off  the  gas  from 
the  main  source  of  supply.  The  Anti-Bank 
men  lighted  locofoco  matches,  as  friction 
matches  were  then  called,  and  conducted 
their  deliberations  thereby  to  a  close.  A 
"  self-lighting  match  "  was  itself  a  misnomer, 
but  the  name  stuck  to  Anti-Bank  Democrats, 
who  "  were  hostile  to  the  moneyed  interests 
of  the  country  "  for  a  long  time  after  this. 

Andrew  Jackson,  broken  in  health  and 
long  past  the  meridian  of  life,  was  yet  able  to 
designate  his  own  successor,  and  Martin  Van 
Buren  had  one  hundred  and  sefventy  electoral 
votes,  in  1837;  William  H.  Harrison  had  sev- 


THE   PASSING   OF   THE   WHIGS  99 

enty-three ;  Hugh  L.  White,  of  Tennessee, 
twenty -six;  Daniel  Webster,  fourteen;  and 
Willie  P.  Mangum,  of  North  Carolina,  eleven. 
"  The  Hugh  L.  White  bolt,"  as  it  was  called, 
was  one  of  the  political  curiosities  of  the 
time.  It  was  said  that  Calhoun  moved  Judge 
White  to  defeat  the  election  of  his  old  chief's 
candidate  for  the  presidency,  and  the  Hero's 
own  State  cast  its  electoral  vote  for  the 
bolter.  There  was  no  election  of  Vice-Pres- 
ident  by  the  people,  and  the  Senate  chose 
Colonel  Richard  M.  Johnson,  of  Kentucky, 
in  whose  behalf  a  whiff  of  the  incense  of 
hero-worship  was  entreated  by  his  friends 
and  admirers;  for  Colonel  Richard  Mentor 
Johnson  was  credited  with  having  killed  Te- 
cumseh  during  the  war  of  1812,  an  exploit 
which  his  opponents  celebrated  in  the  satiri- 
cal jingle  : 

"  High-cockalorum  rumpsey  dumpsey  ! 
Colonel  Johnson  killed  Tecumseh  !  " 

The  political  creed  of  the  Jackson  Demo- 
crats was  embodied  in  the  farewell  address 
of  the  hero  who  had  made  the  party  what  it 
was,  when  he  left  the  White  House  for  his 
Hermitage.  The  man  who  had  so  deeply 
impressed  his  personality  upon  the  Demo- 
cratic party  insisted  on  the  inestimable  value 


100      SHORT   STUDIES    IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

of  the  Union ;  the  danger  of  sectionalism ; 
the  evils  of  a  powerful  government ;  the  ne- 
cessity for  and  safety  of  simple  and  inexpen- 
sive public  institutions;  the  perils  of  surplus 
revenues;  the  injustice  of  a  high  tariff;  the 
unconstitutionality  of  internal  improvements 
at  the  Nation's  cost,  and  the  danger  of  paper 
money.  But  Jackson's  bold  experiments  in 
finance  were  soon  to  plant  thorns  in  the  chair 
of  state  which  he  had  reserved  for  his  suc- 
cessor. 

The  copper  penny  tokens  struck  in  the 
first  year  of  Martin  Van  Buren's  administra- 
tion represented  a  jackass  ambling  with  ex- 
tended feet  across  the  surface  of  the  coin, 
with  the  legend,  "  I  follow  in  the  footsteps  of 
my  illustrious  predecessor."  These  modest 
words  of  Martin  Van  Buren  were  as  much 
indicative  of  his  intentions  as  his  servile 
adoption  of  Jackson's  cabinet,  as  he  found  it 
when  he  took  the  presidential  office.  The 
financial  storm  had  begun  to  gather  before 
Jackson  left  the  White  House,  and  his  last 
hours  in  that  place  were  irritated  by  the 
"  distress  petitions  "  that  came  pouring  into 
his  cabinet  from  artisans  and  manufacturers 
who  were  beginning  to  feel  the  effects  of  the 
stringency  caused  by  the  fitful  and  irrational 
financial  policy  of  the  Administration.  The 


aBftasasag^-r^^-i^-ga^^ 


JOHN    RANDOLPH. 
From  a  picture  by  Jarvis  in   1811,  at  the  New  York  Historical  Society. 


THE   PASSING   OF  THE    WHIGS  IO3 

summary  checking  of  the  speculations  which 
were  the  natural  outcome  of  Jackson's  course 
in  regard  to  banks  and  banking,  resulted  in 
the  distressful  panic  of  1837.  The  elated 
Whigs  exultingly  cried,  "  We  told  you  so  ! " 
and  dire  disorder  reigned  in  politics  as  well 
as  in  the  world  of  commerce. 

Whig  successes  in  the  elections  continued, 
and  the  Democratic  majority  in  Congress  be- 
gan to  melt  away.  Finally,  the  Whigs  tri- 
umphed in  1840,  William  Henry  Harrison, 
for  a  second  time  candidate  of  his  party,  be- 
ing elected  by  two  hundred  and  thirty-four 
electoral  votes  ;  Van  Buren  had  only  sixty 
votes.  In  that  election  the  anti-slavery  ele- 
ments made  their  first  appearance  in  a  Na- 
tional canvass.  James  G.  Birney,  the  candi- 
date of  the  Liberty  party,  polled  a  popular 
vote  of  7,609 ;  but  he  carried  no  State. 

General  Harrison  was  the  first  President 
to  die  in  office,  and  that  lamentable  event  at 
first  caused  much  confusion  as  to  the  exact 
status  in  law  of  the  Vice-President,  John  Ty- 
ler, who  now  succeeded  to  the  functions  of 
the  Executive  Chief.  But  Tyler  at  once 
disposed  of  all  doubt;  he  took  the  title  of 
President,  and  thus  established  the  requisite 
precedent.  With  him  came  the  epithet  of 
"  Tylerization."  He  soon  broke  with  his 


104      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

party,  the  Whigs,  and  by  his  veto  of  a  bill  to 
create  a  Bank  of  the  United  States  he  alien- 
ated and  embittered  the  Whig  chiefs,  of  whom 
Clay  was  the  foremost.  It  was  insisted  (es- 
pecially by  Clay),  that  the  bank  question  had 
been  a  dominant  issue  in  the  canvass  which 
sent  Harrison  to  the  White  House.  This 
was  not  strictly  true.  In  point  of  fact,  the 
campaign  of  1840  was  carried  on  by  the 
Whigs  in  a  wild  delirium  of  hard  cider,  log- 
cabins,  and  coon-skins.  Silas  Wright,  reply- 
ing to  Clay's  assertion,  ironically  said  that  if 
the  voice  of  the  people,  manifested  in  the  late 
canvass  was  to  be  heeded,  the  Capitol  must 
be  replaced  by  a  log-cabin  decked  with  coon- 
skins.  In  that  canvass  something  of  the  old 
dramatic  and  unreasoning  spirit  that  had 
characterized  the  Jackson  campaigns  pre- 
vailed, only  that  log-cabins  replaced  hickory 
poles. 

Nor  was  there  anything  in  the  declarations 
of  the  convention  that  nominated  Harrison, 
in  1840,  to  warrant  Clay's  statement;  that 
convention  made  no  official  deliverance  on 
any  subject  whatever.  The  Democrats,  on 
the  other  hand,  adopted  a  strict  construction- 
ist  platform,  in  which  they  denied  the  power 
of  Congress  to  recharter  a  National  bank, 
carry  on  public  improvements  at  the  Na- 


THE   PASSING  OF  THE   WHIGS  IO5 

tion's  expense,  protect  manufactures  by  a 
tariff,  or  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  States. 
John  Tyler  was  a  strict  constructionist  of  the 
Calhoun  school,  and  when  his  Whig  cabinet 
was  broken  up  and  he  was  formally  read  out 
of  the  Whig  party,  the  new  men  who  came 
in  to  keep  company  with  Daniel  Webster 
(who  was  left  standing  there  the  lone  Whig, 
"  grand,  gloomy,  and  peculiar  "),  they  were 
described  by  President  Tyler  "  as  all  original 
Jackson  men  who  mean  to  act  on  Republican 
principles." 

Tyler's  course  was  claimed  as  a  great 
Democratic  victory,  and  his  subsequent  man- 
ifestations of  indirectness  and  vacillation  of 
purpose  still  further  alienated  from  him  his 
Whig  friends  and  allies.  The  Democratic 
jubilation  took  a  ludicrous  form.  The  word 
"  veto,"  made  popular  among  them  by  Ty- 
ler's repeated  disapprovals  of  bills  passed  by 
a  Whig  Congress,  was  adopted  as  a  party 
war-cry,  and  was  conferred  by  enthusiastic 
Democrats  upon  vessels,  horses,  and  even 
children.  The  Whigs  burned  Tyler  in  effigy 
and  lampooned  him  with  wrathful  zest. 
Their  political  adversaries  were  in  parox- 
ysms of  delight  and  triumph. 

During  Tyler's  term  came  on  a  time  of 
monetary  stringency ;  and  as  it  happened 


106      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

that  a  species  of  influenza  raged  at  that  time, 
everybody  was  set  to  talking  about  the  prev- 
alent "  Tyler  grip."  More  serious  than  this, 
was  the  looming  of  the  Texas  question,  now 
slowly  rising  in  the  background  of  American 
politics.  When  Jefferson  had  concluded  the 
Louisiana  purchase,  some  doubt  prevailed  as 
to  the  precise  location  of  the  western  bound- 
ary of  the  newly  acquired  territory.  Whether 
the  Sabine  or  the  Rio  Grande  defined  its 
southwestern  limit  was  not  settled.  When 
Florida  was  purchased,  a  dicker  was  made 
with  Spain,  and  we  bartered  the  disputed 
territory  and  accepted  the  Sabine  as  the 
limit  of  our  possession  in  that  direction. 
And  now  the  South  demanded  that  the 
southwestern  limit  of  slavery  should  be  at 
the  Rio  Grande,  on  the  confines  of  Mexico, 
and  not  on  the  Sabine,  the  eastern  boundary 
of  Texas.  Tyler  negotiated  a  treaty  for  the 
annexation  of  Texas,  but  the  Whig  Senate 
rejected  it  by  an  overwhelming  majority,  and 
seven  Democrats  voted  on  that  occasion  with 
the  Whigs,  to  Tyler's  great  discomfiture. 

By  slow  degrees,  but  with  impressive  cer- 
tainty, the  Democratic  party  became  more 
and  more  closely  identified  with  the  support 
of  slavery.  It  was  to  stand  as  the  apologist 
and  defender  of  the  institution.  Finally  the 


THE   PASSING   OF  THE   WHIGS  IO/ 

Democratic  National  Convention  of  1844, 
which  nominated  James  K.  Polk,  of  Tennes- 
see, declared  in  favor  of  the  annexation  of 
Texas;  and  Martin  Van  Buren,  whose  posi- 
tion on  the  Texas  question  had  incurred  for 
him  the  hostility  of  the  Southern  delegates, 
was  defeated  for  a  renomination  by  the  skil- 
ful enforcement  of  the  rule  (which  still  pre- 
vails), that  a  two-thirds  vote  should  be  re- 
quired for  a  nomination  in  a  Democratic 
National  Convention.  Clay  was  nominated 
by  the  Whigs  on  a  platform  drawn  for  the 
benefit  of  the  loose  constructionists  but 
which  was  silent  on  the  subject  of  the  an- 
nexation of  Texas.  Subsequently,  however, 
Clay  wrote  the  so-called,  "Raleigh  letter"  in 
which  he  deliberately  announced  his  opposi- 
tion to  annexation;  then,  becoming  alarmed 
by  the  dissatisfaction  of  his  friends  in  the 
South,  he  wrote  again,  this  time  the  "  Ala- 
bama letter,"  in  which  he  temporized  with 
the  burning  question.  He  failed  to  reinstate 
himself  in  favor  with  the  South ;  he  lost 
much  of  his  Northern  support. ;  and  Polk  was 
elected  with  one  hundred  and  seventy  votes, 
Clay  receiving  one  hundred  and  five  votes. 

One  of  the  war-cries  of  that  campaign  was, 
"  Polk,  Dallas,  and  the  Tariff  of  1842."  The 
tariff  of  1842  was  a  modification  of  that 


IO8      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

drawn  by  Clay  in  1833  to  pacify  the  South 
Carolina  milliners.  Now  it  was  asserted 
that  the  Clay  Whigs  were  opposed  to  that 
tariff,  which  was  a  protective  measure.  The 
cry  helped  to  carry  Pennsylvania  for  Polk ; 
and  the  tariff  of  1842  was  repealed  with 
delightful  abandonment  of  principle  by  the 
Polk  Democrats,  as  soon  as  they  were  in 
power.  Another  slogan  of  the  Democrats 
was  "  Fifty-four  Forty,  or  Fight,"  these  figures 
representing  the  parallel  of  north  latitude 
on  which  it  was  proposed  to  rest  immovably 
our  claim  for  a  northwestern  boundary  of 
the  republic.  But  President  Polk,  with  the 
advice  and  consent  of  the  Senate,  compro- 
mised on  the  parallel  of  forty-nine. 

In  the  South,  "  Texas  or  Disunion "  was 
the  rallying-cry  and  the  toast.  The  strict 
constructionists  who  supported  Polk  in  Con- 
gress agreed  that  he  might  violate  the 
Constitution  by  the  annexation  of  a  foreign 
State  without  the  incidental  intervention  of  a 
treaty,  provided  he  were  willing  to  take  the 
responsibility.  Texas,  with  its  existing  war 
with  Mexico,  was  annexed  in  December, 
1845.  The  ignoble  compromise  with  Eng- 
land on  the  northwestern  boundary  was 
hastened  by  the  complications  of  the  south- 
western frontier. 


JOHN    QUINCY    ADAMS. 
From  a  picture  by  Gilbert  Stuart. 


THE   PASSING   OF   THE   WHIGS  III 

The  Mexican  war  was  bitterly  opposed  in 
the  Northern  States,  especially  by  the  Lib- 
erty party,  and  by  such  Whigs  as  Thomas 
Corwin  and  Abraham  Lincoln.  Orators  who 
denounced  the  war  expressed  their  belief, 
if  not  their  hope,  that  the  invading  hosts 
on  Mexican  soil  would  be  "  welcomed  with 
bloody  hands  to  hospitable  graves."  It  was 
out  of  the  fever  and  excitement  of  this  pe- 
riod of  political  turmoil,  that  the  country  re- 
ceived the  masterly  satires  of  James  Russell 
Lowell,  known  as  the  "  Biglow  Papers,"  the 
first  of  which  was  an  address  to  a  recruiting 
sergeant  drumming  up  recruits  for  the  Mex- 
ican war. 

When  the  war  was  over  and  peace  had  re- 
turned, conquest  and  treaty  had  added  to 
the  United  States  the  territory  now  occu- 
pied by  the  States  of  Texas,  California,  and 
Nevada,  parts  of  the  States  of  Colorado  and 
Wyoming,  and  the  Territories  of  Utah,  Ari- 
zona, and  New  Mexico.  With  this  magnifi- 
cent acquisition  to  the  national  domain  came 
a  reopening  of  the  question  which  was  sup- 
posed to  have  been  forever  settled  by  the 
adoption  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  under 
the  manipulation  of  Clay,  the  Great  Pacifi- 
cator, in  1820.  It  opened  in  American  politics 
the  field  in  which  the  battle  between  Free- 


112      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

dom  and  Slavery,  after  one  more  truce,  was 
to  be  fought  out  to  the  end. 

During  the  campaign  that  had  carried 
Polk  to  the  White  House  a  new  dance — the 
polka — was  introduced  into  the  United  States 
from  Bohemia  by  the  way  of  Vienna  and 
Paris.  It  was  facetiously  said  that  Polk  had 
been  danced  into  office.  And  it  was  with  a 
light  heart  that  the  merrymaking  slave- 
holders at  the  Polk  inauguration  balls  cele- 
brated their  victory.  They  had  defeated  the 
personal  party  of  Henry  Clay ;  for  to  this 
complexion  the  Whig  party  had  come,  in 
1844.  But  in  that  canvass  New  York,  once 
more  the  pivotal  State,  was  lost  to  the  Whigs 
only  by  anti-slavery  votes,  purposely  thrown 
away  on  James  G.  Birney,  the  nominee  of 
the  Liberty  party.  The  revolution  had  be- 
gun. 


Ill 

WHEN   SLAVERY   WENT   OUT   OF   POLITICS 

JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  was  an  Alabama 
slave-holder  who,  being  converted  to 
the  cause  of  immediate  emancipation,  in 
1834,  freed  his  slaves,  and  further  evinced 
the  faith  that  was  in  him  by  removing  to 
Cincinnati  and  there  setting  up  a  newspaper, 
The  Philanthropist,  in  which  he  advocated 
the  doctrines  that  he  had  embraced.  After 
the  cheerful  custom  of  that  time,  he  was  re- 
peatedly mobbed  and  his  types  and  presses 
destroyed  in  the  interest  of  the  divine  insti- 
tution of  slavery,  whose  outposts  he  had 
attacked.  Finally,  giving  up  his  hopeless 
task  in  the  free  State  of  Ohio,  Mr.  Birney 
went  to  the  city  of  New  York,  where  he  had 
no  perishable  property  to  be  wrecked,  and 
where  he  became  an  active  agent  and  pro- 
moter of  the  American  Anti-slavery  Society. 
When  the  Abolitionists  of  that  day  got 
down  to  voting,  they  did  not  find  in  the  can- 
didates of  either  of  the  two  great  parties  a 


114      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

man  on  whom  they  could  place  the  decora- 
tion  of  their  confidence.  They  voted  in  the 
air.  They  nominated  Mr.  Birney  for  Presi- 
dent in  1840,  when  General  Harrison  ran 
against  and  defeated  Martin  Van  Buren. 
They  nominated  him  again  in  1844,  when 
Henry  Clay  was  defeated  by  James  K.  Polk. 
If  the  Abolitionists,  who  took  the  name  of 
Liberty  party  when  they  went  into  national 
politics,  had  voted  for  Henry  Clay  in  1844, 
they  might  have  elected  him.  In  the  can- 
vass, that  year,  Polk  had  only  38,792  votes 
over  Clay  ;  Birney  polled  62,263  votes,  all 
told  ;  and  it  was  the  Liberty  party  vote  of 
New  York  that  turned  the  scale,  giving  that 
State  to  Polk  by  a  small  plurality,  and  there- 
by insuring  him  a  majority  of  the  electoral 
votes.  Of  the  two  leading  candidates,  Clay 
was  more  distinctively  to  be  regarded  as  op- 
posed to  slavery  extension,  although  he  had 
dallied  with  the  great  question.  Polk  was 
unreservedly  in  favor  of  the  annexation  of 
Texas  and  the  whole  pro-slavery  programme. 
But  the  Liberty  party  men,  throwing  away 
their  votes  on  James  G.  Birney  and  thereby 
making  sure  the  election  of  the  pro-slavery 
candidate  of  the  Democratic  party,  builded 
better  than  they  knew.  This  hastened  the 
more  forcible  and  offensive  exhibition  of  the 


JOHN    P.  HALE. 
From  a  photograph  by  Brady. 


WHEN   SLAVERY   WENT  OUT   OF   POLITICS     1 1/ 

policy  of  the  slave  -  owners,  and  convinced 
thoughtful  Abolitionists  that  if  they  were  to 
accomplish  anything  in  American  politics 
they  must  unite  with  all  the  elements  that 
were  opposed  to  any  further  extension  of 
slavery.  Heretofore  they  had  clamored  for 
the  immediate  abolition  of  slavery ;  they 
were  content  with  no  preliminary  'measures  ; 
they  had  theorized  very  much  as  the  Pro- 
hibitionists have  since.  Now  they  began  to 
think  that  a  union  of  voters  opposed  to 
enlarging  the  domain  of  slavery  was  not 
only  practicable  but  expedient.  The  Liberty 
party,  passing  through  sundry  mutations, 
eventually  became  part  of  the  organization 
that  took  up  the  gage  of  battle  thrown  down 
by  the  slave  power  and  saved  Liberty  and 
Union. 

President  Polk  was  a  strict  constructionist 
in  all  matters  but  those  relating  to  the  ex- 
tension of  slavery.  There  he  was  consistent 
in  his  devotion  to  the  peculiar  institution, 
even  while  he  invoked  the  authority  of  the 
Constitution  to  defeat  the  intention  of  Con- 
gress to  provide  for  the  improvement  of 
rivers  and  harbors  and  other  public  works. 
But  by  this  time,  although  questions  relating 
to  the  tariff,  public  improvements,  and  other 
minor  interests  had  not  been  wholly  laid 


Il8      SHORT  STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

aside,  the  great,  looming-,  and  all-absorbing 
topic  in  American  politics  was  slavery  and 
its  innumerable  correlatives.  In  the  last 
year  of  Folk's  administration,  the  bill  to  or- 
ganize the  Territory  of  Oregon  without  slav- 
ery was  passed  by  the  Whig  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives ;  it  was  so  amended  by  the  Dem- 
ocratic Senate  as  to  extend  the  line  of  the 
Missouri  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  The  House, 
by  a  sectional  vote,  rejected  that  amend- 
ment ;  and  the  Senate,  with  reluctance, 
passed  the  bill.  It  was  not  yet  time  to  di- 
vide the  newly  acquired  territory  into  two 
parts,  the  northern  half  free  and  the  south- 
ern half  slave. 

Debates  in  Congress  grew  more  and  more 
excited  as  the  slavery  question  again  rose 
above  the  horizon.  The  few  Northern  Con- 
gressmen who  inclined  to  anti-slavery  views 
were  assailed  with  coarse  abuse.  Senator 
John  P.  Hale,  of  New  Hampshire,  for  exam- 
ple, was  not  only  excluded  rigorously  from 
all  the  standing  committees  of  the  Senate, 
but  was  assaulted  with  virulence.  The 
loose  -  tongued  Foote,  of  Mississippi,  once 
told  him  that  he,  Hale,  "  could  not  go  ten 
miles  into  the  interior  of  Mississippi  before 
he  would  grace  one  of  the  tallest  trees  of  the 
forest,  with  a  rope  round  his  neck,  with  the 


WHEN   SLAVERY   WENT   OUT   OF   POLITICS     1 19 

approbation  of  every  honest  and  patriotic 
citizen."  Compliments  like  these  were  com- 
mon in  Congress.  The  slave-holders  now 
advanced  the  dogma  that  human  slavery 
was  guaranteed  protection  under  the  Con- 
stitution in  all  that  part  of  the  domain  of  the 
United  States  in  which  State  governments 
had  not  been  set  up  and  the  institution  for- 
mally excluded.  Although  the  Constitution, 
of  which  they  were  so  strict  constructionists, 
referred  to  slaves  as  "  persons,"  they  now 
contended  that  they  were  "  property,"  and 
as  such  were  entitled  to  the  same  protection 
in  the  Territories  as  that  accorded  to  real  or 
any  other  personal  estate. 

Meanwhile,  Abolitionism  was  assuming  a 
political  complexion  in  the  Northern  States, 
to  the  extreme  discomfort  of  the  managers 
of  both  great  parties.  The  Presidental  elec- 
tion of  1848  was  coming  on,  and  the  Whigs 
of  the  North  were  greatly  perturbed  as  they 
saw  their  party  "  ratted "  by  men  who  in- 
continently deserted,  as  if  they  already 
scented  disaster  and  wreck.  In  the  Massa- 
chusetts Whig  Convention  of  that  year,  Dan- 
iel Webster,  with  characteristic  grandilo- 
quence, calling  after  the  fugitives,  said  :  "  For 
my  part,  in  the  dark  and  troubled  night  that 
is  upon  us,  I  see  no  star  above  the  horizon 


120     SHORT  STUDIES  IN  PARTY  POLITICS 

promising-  light  to  guide  us  but  the  intel- 
ligent, patriotic,  united  Whig  party  of  the 
United  States."  Already,  although  that  party 
was  on  the  eve  of  a  famous  victory,  its  knell 
had  sounded. 

A  more  serious  schism  than  that  in  the 
Whig-  party  of  Massachusetts  was  going  on 
meanwhile  in  the  Democratic  party  of  New 
York.  The  friends  of  Martin  Van  Buren  did 
not  forgive  the  defeat  of  their  favorite  leader 
by  the  aggressive  slave  power  in  the  Na- 
tional Convention  of  1844.  Recognizing  the 
fact  that  his  supposed  hostility  to  the  further 
extension  of  slavery  had  cost  him  dearly,  the 
Sage  of  Kinderhook  was  made  a  hero  and  a 
martyr.  The  Democrats  of  New  York  di- 
vided into  anti-slavery  and  pro-slavery  fac- 
tions ;  or  they  were  known  as  Barn-burners 
and  Hunkers.  The  Barn-burners  did  not  pro- 
pose incendiarism  ;  their  nickname  was  given 
them  by  men  who  accused  them  of  being 
ready  to  destroy  the  Union  to  kill  slavery, 
like  the  foolish  farmer  who  burned  his  barn 
to  exterminate  the  rats  that  plagued  him.  A 
Hunker  was  a  conservative.  In  Massachu- 
setts the  Conscience  Whigs  were  opposed  by 
the  Cotton  Whigs ;  and  each  faction  dis- 
trusted the  other. 

The  Democratic  and  Whig  National  Con- 


MARTIN    VAN    BUREN. 
From  a  photograph  by  Brady. 


WHEN   SLAVERY   WENT   OUT   OF  POLITICS     123 

ventions  of  1848  were  somewhat  non-com- 
mittal on  the  burning  question  ;  and  by  this 
time  conventional  deliverances  on  the  sub- 
jects of  tariff,  internal  improvements,  and  the 
finances  had  become  more  than  perfunctory 
— impertinent.  The  Democratic  Convention, 
which  nominated  Lewis  Cass  for  President, 
uttered  platitudes  about  a  strict  construction 
of  the  Constitution  (as  it  might  have  prattled 
in  Jefferson's  time),  but  refused  to  touch  the 
slavery  question  when  it  was  proposed  to 
declare  that  Congress  had  no  power  to  in- 
terfere with  slavery,  either  in  the  States  or 
in  the  Territories.  The  Whig  Convention, 
which  nominated  General  Zachary  Taylor, 
discreetly  made  no  platform,  and  could  not 
be  induced  to  declare  in  favor  of  the  Wilmot 
Proviso — that  slavery  should  not  exist  in  Ter- 
ritories to  be  organized  under  the  authority 
of  the  United  States. 

The  Democratic  Convention,  puzzled  by 
the  appearance  of  two  rival  delegations  from 
New  York,  one  Barn-burner  and  the  other 
Hunker,  vainly  temporized  with  the  schism 
and  admitted  both,  with  the  privilege  of  di- 
viding the  State  vote  equally  between  them. 
The  Barn-burners  would  have  none  of  the 
Convention ;  they  went  home,  and,  assem- 
bling in  Utica,  nominated  Martin  Van  Buren 


124      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

for  President,  and  Henry  Dodge,  of  Wiscon- 
sin, for  Vice-President.  This  defiance  gave 
heart  to  the  new  anti-slavery  organization  just 
forming,  and  when  the  new  party  assembled 
in  convention,  at  Buffalo,  in  August  of  that 
year,  the  Barn-burners  were  there  in  great 
force  to  assist  in  the  nomination  of  Martin 
Van  Buren  for  President,  and  Charles  Francis 
Adams  for  Vice-President.  The  Free -Soil 
party  was  born. 

The  platform  of  the  Buffalo  Convention 
was  presented  by  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  of 
New  York.  It  took  high  ground  on  the  sub- 
ject of  slavery,  declared  against  its  further 
extension,  and  insisted  that "  Congress  has  no 
more  power  to  make  a  slave  than  to  make  a 
king."  The  slogan  of  the  party  was  declared 
to  be  "  Free  Soil,  Free  Speech,  Free  Labor, 
and  Free  Men."  John  Quincy  Adams,  who 
had  made  the  Whig  party  (without  knowing 
it),  for  Henry  Clay  to  lead,  was  in  full  ac- 
cord with  the  men  who  led  the  Free -Soil 
movement.  Daniel  Webster,  chagrined  by 
his  own  personal  defeat  in  the  Whig  Conven- 
tion, stigmatized  the  nomination  of  Taylor  as 
one  "  not  fit  to  be  made,"  and,  if  political  his- 
torians are  to  be  credited,  he  wavered  for  a 
few  days  between  his  own  party  and  the  new- 
born of  Buffalo. 


ZACHARY  TAYLOR. 
From  a  photograph  by  Brady. 


WHEN   SLAVERY   WENT   OUT   OF   POLITICS     I2/ 

General  Taylor  was  a  slave-holder,  a  mod- 
erate man,  devoted  to  the  Union,  and  sus- 
picious of  the  ultra  doctrines  of  State  Rights. 
When  a  Southern  planter,  in  the  course  of  the 
campaign,  wrote  to  know  what  Taylor  pro- 
posed to  do  about  slavery  in  case  he  was 
elected,  saying  that  he  (the  writer),  had  in- 
vested his  savings  and  gains  in  one  hundred 
slaves,  Taylor  diplomatically  replied  that  he 
had  three  hundred  slaves,  the  result  of  his 
savings  and  gains.  Was  it  likely  that  he 
would  sacrifice  his  property  ?  The  campaign 
was  one  of  hurrah  and  military  glory.  To 
some  extent  it  was  an  imitation  of  Old  Hick- 
ory and  of  that  of  the  Hero  of  Tippecanoe. 
Now  it  was  "  Old  Rough  and  Ready,"  the 
brave  "  Old  Hero  of  Buena  Vista,"  who 
claimed  the  plaudits  of  his  fellow-country- 
men— and  got  them  in  large  measure.  Against 
Taylor  was  opposed  General  Lewis  Cass  with 
his  bloodless  sword,  admirably  satirized  by 
Abraham  Lincoln,  who  was  far-seeing  enough 
to  discern  the  triumph  of  the  candidate  who 
had  snatched  from  his  own  beloved  chieftain, 
Harry  Clay,  the  honor  of  the  nomination. 
Lincoln  was  a  delegate  to  the  Whig  Conven- 
tion, in  1848,  and  a  day  or  two  after  its  ad- 
journment he  wrote  :  "  In  my  opinion,  we 
shall  have  a  most  overwhelming  and  glorious 


128      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

triumph.  One  unmistakable  sign  is  that  all 
the  odds  and  ends  are  with  us — Barn-burners, 
Native  Americans,  Tyler  men,  disappointed 
office-seeking  Loco-focos,  and  the  Lord 
knows  what.  This  is  important,  if  in  noth- 
ing else,  in  showing  which  way  the  wind 
blows." 

The  prophecy  was  fulfilled.  Daniel  Web- 
ster had  said,  with  an  air  of  deep  discourage- 
ment, "  There  is  no  North  ;  "  and  William 
H.  Seward,  then  hesitating  on  the  threshold 
of  political  anti-slavery,  while  he  pleaded  for 
equal  rights  and  the  ending  of  slavery,  had 
argued  that  the  Whig  party  was  as  true  to 
the  interests  of  freedom  as  "  the  inert  con- 
science of  the  American  people  "  would  per- 
mit it  to  be.  Nevertheless,  the  North  had 
elected  a  Whig  who  was  known  to  be  a  mod- 
erate conservative  over  one  who  was  the 
pledged  nominee  of  the  pro-slavery  faction. 
The  Democratic  party  of  New  York  was  rent 
in  twain  by  anti-slavery  Whigs.  And  the 
Whig  party  had  won  its  last  victory.  The 
wrath  of  the  Northern  Democrats  was  in- 
tense. 

Here  we  should  notice  another  of  those 
odd  cross-currents  which,  like  the  Anti-ma- 
sonic panic  of  1833,  have  deranged  the  best- 
laid  plans  of  politicians,  and  for  a  time  have 


WHEN   SLAVERY   WENT   OUT   OF   POLITICS     129 

obliterated  party  lines.  The  American  party 
sprung  out  of  a  secret  and  oath-bound  order 
that  was  formed  in  New  York  for  the  avowed 
purpose  of  checking  the  influence  of  foreign- 
born  voters,  purifying  the  ballot-box,  and 
keeping  the  Bible  in  the  public  schools.  In 
the  city  of  New  York,  where  voters  of  alien 
birth  had  become  influential,  the  order  flour- 
ished exceedingly,  and  when  it  was  extended 
to  other  States,  it  attracted  many  on  whom 
party  obligations  sat  lightly,  while  the  old 
parties  were  either  breaking  up  or  undergo- 
ing a  purging  process.  The  Democratic 
party  had  usually  been  in  favor  of  easy  nat- 
uralization. The  term  of  residence  requisite 
to  lawful  naturalization,  at  first  fixed  at  two 
years,  was  extended  in  1795  to  five  years; 
the  Federalists,  in  1798,  stretched  this  to 
fourteen  years,  but  in  1802  the  Democratic- 
Republicans  cut  it  down  again  to  five  years. 
Men  who  left  the  Democratic  party  because 
of  its  domination  by  foreign  voters,  or  who 
dropped  out  of  the  Whig  party  when  it  be- 
gan to  show  signs  of  decay,  now  found  an 
asylum  in  the  American  party. 

The  American  party  flourished  exceeding- 
ly in  1852,  and  reached  its  meridian  great- 
ness in  1855,  when  it  obtained  a  considerable 
foothold  in  the  South  and  carried  important 


130      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

elections  in  the  New  England  States,  Califor- 
nia, Kentucky,  Texas,  and  New  York,  and 
showed  great  strength  in  Virginia,  Georgia, 
Alabama,  Mississippi,  and  Louisiana.  The 
party  made  preparations  for  entering  the 
presidential  contest  of  1856,  and  actually  did 
set  its  standard  in  the  field ;  but  the  rising 
tide  of  opposition  to  the  further  extension 
of  slavery  eventually  swamped  the  organi- 
zation, and  it  finally  went  under,  long  be- 
fore the  breaking  out  of  the  war  of  the  rebel- 
lion. 

The  new  dogma  of  Squatter  Sovereignty, 
proclaimed  in  1849,  was  to  the  effect  that  the 
people  of  any  Territory  of  the  United  States 
had  the  right  "  to  vote  slavery  up  or  down," 
as  they  saw  fit.  But  this  doctrine  mightily 
plagued  its  inventors  when  California,  inun- 
dated by  gold-seekers  and  suddenly  populous 
enough  to  demand  a  State  government, 
adopted  a  constitution  in  which  slavery  was 
expressly  prohibited.  Here  was  popular  sov- 
ereignty with  a  vengeance  !  The  application 
of  California  for  admission  as  a  State,  which 
came  to  the  first  Congress  under  Taylor's 
administration,  in  February,  1850,  met  with  a 
cool  reception  from  the  Democratic  party. 
The  House  was  then  composed  of  one  hun- 
dred and  ten  Democrats,  one  hundred  and 


ANDREW   JACKSON. 
From  a  photograph  by  Brady, 


WHEN   SLAVERY   WENT  OUT   OF   POLITICS      133 

five  Whigs,  and  nine  Free-Soilers ;  in  the 
Senate  there  were  thirty -five  Democrats, 
twenty-five  Whigs,  and  two  Free-Soilers. 

Henry  Clay,  now  in  the  seventy-fourth 
year  of  his  age,  had  cancelled  his  vow  of  re- 
tirement, and  had  returned  to  the  Senate, 
adding  his  lustre  to  the  constellation  of 
statesmen — Calhoun,  Cla}T,  and  Webster — 
which  was  to  shine  for  the  last  time  in  the 
great  debate  that  ensued.  The  South  re- 
garded the  proposition  to  admit  California  as 
a  Free  State,  without  the  counterpoise  of  a 
Slave  State,  as  a  gross  violation  of  its  rights. 
Intense  excitement  prevailed  all  over  the 
Slave  States  of  the  Union,  and  open  threats 
of  disunion  were  made.  While  the  great  de- 
bate was  still  on,  a  convention  of  slave-hold- 
ing States  was  held  in  Nashville,  Tenn.,  and 
an  address  was  adopted  by  it  declaring, 
among  other  things,  that  "a  sectional  despot- 
ism, totally  irresponsible  to  the  people  of  the 
South,  constituted  of  the  representatives  of 
the  non-slaveholding  States,  ignorant  of  our 
feelings,  condition,  and  institutions,  reigns  in 
Washington."  Henry  Clay  denounced  this 
convocation  as  "  a  second  edition  of  the 
Hartford  Convention."  The  Federalist  as- 
semblage of  1814,  however,  held  its  delibera- 
tions in  secret ;  ignorant  of  its  real  purposes, 


134      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

men  could  misrepresent  them  without  much 
fear  of  contradiction. 

Clay  was  really  in  favor  of  the  Wilmot 
Proviso  and  opposed  to  the  further  extension 
of  slave  territory  ;  and  he  had  very  lately  in- 
sisted, with  much  shrewdness,  that  if  slavery 
was  so  good  a  thing,  good  for  the  slave  as 
well  as  good  for  the  slave-holder,  white  men 
should  be  enslaved  for  their  own  benefit 
whenever  the  black  supply  should  run  low. 
But  as  a  remedy  for  the  acknowledged  ills  of 
slavery,  Clay  had  nothing  to  offer  but  the  de- 
portation of  manumitted  slaves  to  Africa  by 
colonization  societies,  when  gradual  emanci- 
pation should  make  that  possible.  He  pro- 
posed to  "taper  off"  the  custom  of  slave- 
holding  very  much  as  an  inebriate  might 
gradually  escape  from  the  thraldom  of  an 
unnatural  appetite. 

Passionately  devoted  to  the  American 
Union,  Clay  conceived  it  to  be  his  mission 
to  pour  oil  on  the  troubled  waters  and  post- 
pone the  inevitable  day  of  settlement.  His 
famous  compromise  had  for  its  basis  these 
propositions:  The  admission  of  such  new 
States  as  might  be  properly  formed  out  of 
Texas ;  the  immediate  admission  of  Cali- 
fornia with  its  new  constitution  ;  the  organi- 
zation of  the  Territories  of  New  Mexico  and 


WHEN   SLAVERY   WENT   OUT  OF  POLITICS      135 

Utah  without  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  but  with 
Squatter  Sovereignty  ;  Texas  to  be  indemni- 
fied for  its  losses  by  war ;  the  abolition  of 
the  slave-trade  (but  not  of  slavery)  in  the 
District  of  Columbia ;  and  the  enactment  of 
a  stringent  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  This  was 
the  basis  of  the  agreement  which  was  to  take 
the  place  of  the  abrogated  Missouri  Com- 
promise of  1820. 

It  was  Clay's  desire  to  defer  all  further 
agitation  of  the  slavery  question.  He  was 
old  and  feeble,  but  he  persisted  in  speaking 
two  days  in  advocacy  of  his  plan  of  settle- 
ment. Great  numbers  of  people  came  to 
Washington  from  a  distance  to  hear  the  win- 
some and  fascinating  orator  make  this  last 
and  greatest  effort  of  his  life.  When  his 
speech  was  done,  admirers  rushed  upon  him 
to  thank  him,  and  a  multitude  of  women 
kissed  him  with  effusive  tears.  His  task 
was  to  save  the  Union.  His  was  a  plea  for 
peace.  Of  the  North  he  asked  concession ; 
of  the  South,  moderation. 

Calhoun,  pale,  gaunt,  and  saturnine,  and 
more  than  ever  resembling  Andrew  Jackson 
in  face  and  figure,  addressed  the  Senate  for 
the  last  time,  his  speech  being  read  for  him 
by  Senator  Mason,  of  Virginia.  He  entered 
his  despairing  plea  for  that  equilibrium  in 


136      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

the  Union  which  would  be  disturbed  by  the 
admission  of  California  with  a  Free  consti- 
tution ;  and  he  asked  that  the  Federal  Con- 
stitution be  amended  so  that  the  South 
would  have  the  power,  through  all  time,  "to 
protect  herself;  "  but  he  did  not  explain  how 
this  amendment  was  to  be  worded. 

On  the  now  historic  Seventh  of  March, 
1850,  Daniel  Webster  made  his  last  abject 
surrender  to  slavery.  He  had  been  an  elo- 
quent and  apparently  sincere  defender  of 
human  rights ;  now  he  was  a  defender  of 
American  slavery.  He  had  opposed  the  ad- 
mission of  Texas,  because  it  was  linked  in 
with  the  pro-slavery  programme ;  now  he 
advocated  the  admission  and  the  programme. 
He  had  complained,  in  the  Massachusetts 
Whig  Convention  of  1847,  that  the  author  of 
the  Wilmot  Proviso  had  "stolen  his  thun- 
der ; "  now  he  opposed  the  application  of 
that  proviso  to  the  territories  to  be  organ- 
ized north  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line. 
Nothing  in  the  famous  debate  gave  the  na- 
tion so  great  a  shock  of  surprise  as  Webster's 
speech.  In  Massachusetts,  where  he  had 
been  idolized,  many  of  his  friends  fell  away 
from  him  with  sorrow  ;  he  was  for  a  time  re- 
fused the  privilege  of  speaking  in  Faneuil 
Hall,  "the  cradle  of  Liberty;"  and  the  revul- 


DANIEL   WEBSTER. 
From  a  picture  by  Healy  at  the  State  Department,  Washington. 


WHEN   SLAVERY   WENT   OUT  OF  POLITICS     139 

sion  of  feeling  added  greatly  to  the  strength 
of  the  Free-Soil  party,  already  enriched  by 
the  accession  of  such  men  as  Sumner,  Wil- 
son, Banks,  Burlingame,  Richard  H.  Dana, 
jr.,  and  others  whose  names  are  now  famous 
in  American  history.  To  Webster  Whittier 
addressed  his  sorrowful  yet  scathing  lyric, 
"  Ichabod." 

The  "  Omnibus  Bill,"  as  the  compromise 
of  1850  was  commonly  called,  went  through 
Congress  in  detached  sections  and  became  a 
law.  None  of  the  details  of  the  bargain  so 
inflamed  and  excited  the  North  as  the  Fugi- 
tive Slave  Law.  Meetings  denouncing  the 
law  were  held  all  over  the  Northern  States  ; 
personal  liberty  bills  were  passed  by  legis- 
latures ;  and  the  Free-Soil  party  was  re- 
cruited from  the  ranks  of  men  who  now  saw 
that  there  was  no  hope  of  peace  so  long  as 
slavery  was  determined  on  other  aggressions 
than  that  of  forcing  itself  into  the  free  terri- 
tory of  the  United  States.  The  death  of 
President  Taylor,  in  July,  1850,  did  not  affect 
the  policy  of  the  administration.  Congress, 
with  a  union  of  Democrats  and  Whig  "  con- 
servatives," was  master  of  the  situation. 

When  one  of  the  sections  of  the  com- 
promise of  1850  had  been  whipped  through 
the  House  of  Representatives,  aided  by  the 


I4O      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

"  dodging "  of  some  of  the  more  cowardly 
Northerners,  Thaddeus  Stevens,  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, grimly  suggested  that  the  Speaker 
should  send  one  of  his  pages  "  to  inform 
those  gentlemen  that  they  might  now  re- 
turn with  safety,  as  the  slavery  question  had 
now  been  disposed  of."  But  if  any  timid 
souls  supposed  that  that  question  was  finally 
disposed  of  by  the  compromise  of  1850, 
they  were  soon  undeceived.  The  Kansas- 
Nebraska  agitation  came  on  to  disturb  Na- 
tional politics  just  after  the  campaign  of 
1852,  which  had  been  conducted  with  Frank- 
lin Pierce  as  the  candidate  of  the  Democrats, 
General  Winfield  Scott  of  the  Whigs,  and 
John  P.  Hale  of  the  Free-Soilers.  There 
was  now  no  essential  difference  between  the 
platforms  of  the  two  leading  parties.  Both 
stood  squarely  on  the  compromise  measures 
of  1850;  both  endorsed  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law  with  fervor.  The  Whigs  kept  up  a  tra- 
ditional preference  for  a  loose  construction 
of  the  Constitution ;  and  the  Democrats  were 
still  sticklers  for  a  strict  construction,  just  as 
though  both  were  living  in  the  time  of  Ham- 
ilton and  Jefferson,  and  were  not  bending 
before  the  blasts  of  slavery  and  anti-slavery 
that  swept  over  the  land.  As  for  the  Free- 
Soilers,  they  denounced  slavery  as  a  sin 


WHEN   SLAVERY   WENT   OUT   OF   POLITICS      141 

against  God  and  a  crime  against  man ;  they 
execrated  the  compromise  and  objurgated 
the  men  who  supported  it.  At  last,  the  op- 
ponents of  an  indefinite  extension  of  slavery 
had  gone  into  practical  politics. 

When  the  bills  to  abrogate  the  Missouri 
Compromise  were  pending  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  Thomas  H.  Benton,  then 
transferred  to  that  body  from  the  Senate  on 
his  way  to  complete  retirement  on  the  shelf, 
said  that  the  measure,  as  a  whole,  was  not 
called  for  by  any  "  human  being  living  or 
expecting  to  live  in  the  Territories,  but  by 
a  silent,  secret,  limping,  halting,  creeping, 
squinting,  impish  motion,  conceived  in  the 
dark  and  midwifed  in  a  committee-room." 
This  choice  bit  of  Carlylese  must  have  re- 
curred to  the  minds  of  those  who  heard  it 
when,  Pierce  having  been  elected  to  carry 
out  the  most  rigorous  and  drastic  pro-slav- 
ery policy  yet  framed,  the  real  purpose  of 
the  slavery  propaganda  was  unveiled  by  the 
introduction  of  the  Nebraska  bill.  No  long- 
er willing  to  accept  the  line  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise  as  denning  the  northern  limit 
of  slavery,  running  due  west  to  the  Pacific 
Ocean,  the  slave-holders  now  argued  that 
the  principle  of  non-interference  with  slav- 
ery in  the  Territories  by  Congress  was  in- 


142      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

consistent  with  the  Missouri  Compromise  ; 
therefore  that  Compromise  was  void  and  of 
no  effect.  Hereafter,  it  was  insisted,  the 
people  of  each  Territory,  whether  north  or 
south  of  the  parallel  of  36°  30',  should  admit 
or  exclude  slavery  as  they  might  determine 
by  vote.  The  Whig  party,  a  year  before 
this,  had  been  killed,  as  it  was  said,  by  an 
attempt  to  swallow  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law. 
Now  its  last  dying  hours  were  embittered 
by  a  black  draught.  By  the  aid  of  a  few 
Northern  Democrats,  the  Southern  Demo- 
crats and  Whigs  were  able  to  carry  through 
the  Nebraska  bill ;  and  the  Whig  party  van- 
ished from  the  election  returns  of  the  Na- 
tion. 

The  attention  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  was  now  fixed  upon  the  tremendous 
conflict  going  on  in  Kansas,  where,  the  bar- 
rier against  slavery  being  thrown  down,  the 
friends  of  slave  labor  and  those  of  free  labor 
had  been  given  permission  to  "  fight  it  out 
between  themselves."  It  was  no  longer  pos- 
sible to  keep  the  anti-slavery  elements  of  the  * 
population  of  the  United  States  out  of  Na-  /" 
tional  and  local  politics.  So  far  as  known, 
the  first  movement  in  the  direction  of  the  or- 
ganization of  a  new  party  composed  of  the 
friends  of  free  labor,  with  a  new  title,  was 


. 

I^B^.'.^.!1  iV..;""  :-:zr^^^.^r«i~T-^:i^a 


WILLIAM   H.  SEWARD. 
From  a  photograph  by  Brady. 


WHEN   SLAVERY   WENT   OUT   OF    POLITICS     145 

made  in  Ripon,  Fond  du  Lac  County,  Wis., 
early  in  the  spring  of  1854.  A  local  meeting 
dissolved  the  Whig  and  Free-Soil  town  com- 
mittees and  appointed  another  which  should 
take  the  place  of  both.  That  committee  was 
composed  of  representatives  of  three  parties 
—Free  -  Soilers,  Whigs,  Democrats — and  it 
was  given  a  loose-constructionist  schedule  of 
principles.  It  was  suggested  by  the  Whig 
who  had  called  the  meeting,  A.  E.  Bovey, 
that  the  name  of  Republican  would  be  a 
good  one  for  a  party  to  be  devoted  to  the 
proposition  that  the  United  States  were  a 
Republic  with  a  Federal  organization.  But 
the  assemblage  in  the  little  Ripon  school- 
house  did  not  venture  on  anything  more 
than  a  suggestion. 

In  the  following  June,  a  mass  convention 
of  "  all  persons  in  favor  of  resisting  by  all 
constitutional  means  the  usurpations  of  the 
propagandists  of  slavery  "  was  called  in  Ver- 
mont. The  Whig  party  in  that  State  had 
already  cut  all  communications  with  the  pro- 
slavery  Whig  party  of  the  United  States, 
and  the  new  organization  declared  itself  un- 
alterably opposed  to  slavery  and  all  its 
works  ;  its  address  closed  with  these  words : 
"  We  propose,  and  respectfully  recommend 
to  the  friends  of  freedom  in  other  States,  to 


146      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

co-operate  and  be  known  as  Republicans."  It 
has  been  claimed  for  William  H.  Seward  that 
he  gave  to  the  party  the  name  of  Republican. 
But,  wherever  the  suggestion  first  came 
from,  the  first  formal  use  of  the  title  by  an 
efficient  political  combination  was  when  a 
mass  convention  of  Whigs,  Free-Soilers,  and 
Anti-slavery  Democrats,  at  Jackson,  Mich., 
July  6,  1854,  adopted  a  platform  of  princi- 
ples, accepted  the  name  of  Republican,  and 
nominated  for  Governor  Kinsley  S.  Bingham, 
who  was  triumphantly  elected. 

In  the  midst  of  the  resounding  din  of  the 
Kansas  conflict,  the  Democrats  nominated 
James  Buchanan,  of  Pennsylvania,  for  Presi- 
dent, and  John  C.  Breckinridge,  of  Ken- 
tucky, for  Vice-President,  on  a  platform  ap- 
proving of  the  pro-slavery  course  of  Pierce's 
administration  in  Kansas,  and  disapproving 
the  Know -Nothing,  or  American,  policy. 
The  Know -Nothings  ran  Millard  Fillmore 
for  President,  and  Andrew  Jackson  Donel- 
son  (nephew  and  namesake  of  "  Old  Hick- 
ory ")  for  Vice-President.  The  anti-slavery 
men  in  the  Know-Nothing  Convention  bolted 
in  high  dudgeon  when  they  failed  to  secure 
the  adoption  of  a  plank  advocating  the  res- 
toration of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line. 
The  scattered  fragments  of  the  Whig  party, 


WHEN   SLAVERY   WENT   OUT   OF   POLITICS     147 

later  in  the  campaign,  approved  of  the  nom- 
ination of  Fillmore  and  Donelson ;  but  they 
evaded  the  Know-Nothing  platform. 

For  the  first  time  the  National  Republican 
party  now  made  its  appearance  in  a  presi- 
dential campaign.  Its  platform  was  loose 
constructionist,  after  the  Whig  manner, 
with  a  special  declaration  in  favor  of  internal 
improvements  and  a  transcontinental  rail- 
way. But  the  convention's  bugle  blast  on 
the  great  question  of  the  day  was  the  signal 
of  the  new  party's  entrance.  This  was  an 
emphatic  statement  of  the  right  and  duty  of 
Congress  to  prohibit  slavery  and  polygamy 
in  all  the  Territories  and  to  admit  Kansas  as 
a  Free  State  ;  and  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise,  the  general  policy  of  the  Pierce 
administration,  and  the  further  extension  of 
slavery  were  condemned.  John  C.  Fremont, 
of  California,  and  William  L.  Dayton,  of 
New  Jersey,  were  nominated.  The  Repub- 
lican party  was  born.  Popular  elections  in 
the  Northern  States  had  by  this  time  given 
the  Republicans  good  reason  to  hope  that 
they  might  succeed  in  a  national  election, 
provided  they  were  united  and  earnest. 

During  this  canvass  the  writer  of  these 
lines  had  a  long  conversation  with  Abraham 
Lincoln,  then  a  rising  politician  and  lawyer, 


148      SHORT  STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

while  attending  a  Fremont  mass-meeting  in 
Ogle  County,  111.  Mr.  Lincoln  cooled  the 
ardor  of  the  young  and  inexperienced  Re- 
publican newspaper  writer  by  saying  that 
Fremont's  case  was  hopeless.  The  interpo- 
sition of  Fillmore's  nomination,  he  said, 
would  lose  for  Fremont  the  States  of  Penn- 
sylvania and  Illinois.  The  result  proved  the 
wisdom  of  his  words.  Buchanan  was  elected. 
Neither  of  the  three  candidates  had  a  major- 
ity of  the  popular  vote.  Fremont  carried  all 
the  New  England  States,  New  York,  Ohio, 
Michigan,  Iowa,  and  Wisconsin.  The  revo- 
lution had  begun. 

Kansas  continued  to  be  the  bloody  field  of 
strife;  the  Free -State  men,  who  had  now 
become  actual  settlers,  were  fighting  against 
invaders  from  the  slave-ridden  State  of  Mis- 
souri, backed  by  the  administration.  One 
more  blow  was  needed  to  finish  the  crystalli- 
zation of  all  the  elements  opposed  to  slavery. 
This  fell  two  days  after  Buchanan's  inau- 
guration, when  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court  announced  the  famous  Dred  Scott  de- 
cision. This  was,  in  effect,  an  opinion  that 
the  ancestors  of  negro  slaves  were  not  per- 
sons, but  chattels ;  that  they  had  no  rights 
that  a  white  man  was  bound  to  respect ;  that 
the  Act  of  Congress  of  1820,  prohibiting 


WILLIAM    HENRY    HARRISON. 
From  a  copy  at  the  Corcoran  Art  Gallery  of  a  painting  by  Beard  in   1840. 


WHEN   SLAVERY   WENT   OUT   OF   POLITICS      151 

slavery  north  of  the  parallel  of  36°  30',  was 
unconstitutional  and  void,  and  that  a  slave- 
owner could  not  be  lawfully  prevented  from 
settling  in  any  Territory  of  the  United  States 
with  all  his  "  property ;  "  and,  to  make  more 
binding  this  infamous  decision,  it  was  further 
declared  that  a  slave-owner  might  carry  his 
slave  property  into  any  free  State  or  Terri- 
tory, without  thereby  invalidating  his  right 
of  possession  in  said  property.  The  North 
was  asked  to  accept  the  doctrine  that  prop- 
erty in  slaves  was  recognized  in  every  State 
of  the  Federal  Union,  provided  only  that  a 
slave-holder  chose  to  take  up  temporary  resi- 
dence in  a  free  State  with  his  chattels. 

The  slave-holders,  notwithstanding  this 
concession  of  all  they  had  previously  de- 
manded, were  still  unsatisfied.  It  became 
more  and  more  doubtful  that  Kansas  could 
be  saved  to  slavery,  although  all  the  machin- 
ery of  law,  and  all  the  trickery  of  politicians, 
and  all  the  brute  force  of  border  raiders  had 
been  enlisted  for  the  purpose.  The  Terri- 
tory was  satirized  as  "  Bleeding  Kansas ;  "  it 
was  also  "  The  Graveyard  of  Governors ; " 
four  of  these,  in  three  years,  had  vainly  been 
commissioned  to  help  force  slavery  into  the 
distracted  and  resisting  Territory.  In  spite 
of  violence  and  machinations,  the  people  of 


152      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

the  Territory,  who  were  actual  settlers,  did 
occasionally  get  a  chance  to  vote  ;  and  when 
they  voted,  it  was  invariably  against  slavery. 
But  it  now  became  expedient  that  more  ter- 
ritory for  the  extension  of  slavery  should  be 
procured.  The  acquisition  of  Cuba  by  the 
United  States,  or  the  seizure  of  some  of  the 
Central  American  States,  was  openly  advo- 
cated, and  these  suggestions  were  accepted 
as  sound  Democratic  doctrine.  But  foreign 
objection  summarily  defeated  both  of  these 
schemes  as  soon  as  they  took  shape.  It  was 
seriously  proposed  by  some  of  the  Southern 
politicians  that  the  slave-trade  should  be  re- 
vived, and  this  proposition  was  a  legitimate 
sequence  to  the  urgent  claim  that  Congress 
should  defend  the  right  of  property  in  human 
beings  in  every  Territory  of  the  United  States. 
This  latter  article  of  political  faith  was  em- 
bodied in  the  formal  platform  proposed  for 
the  Democratic  National  Convention  of  1860. 
In  that  convention,  however,  the  Anti-Le- 
compton  men,  led  by  Stephen  A.  Douglas, 
refused  to  accept  the  dictum  that  neither 
Congress  nor  the  Territorial  Legislature 
had  a  right  to  prohibit  slavery  in  a  Terri- 
tory. The  recalcitrant  Douglas  Democrats, 
with  notable  inconsistency,  were  willing  to 
leave  the  question  to  the  United  States  Su- 


MILLARD    FILLMORE. 
From  a  painting  by  Carpenter,  in   1853,  at  the   City  Hall,  New  York. 


WHEN   SLAVERY   WENT   OUT   OF   POLITICS      155 

preme  Court,  although  that  tribunal  (in  the 
Dred  Scott  case)  had  already  decided  that 
Congress  had  no  right  to  prohibit  slavery 
anywhere.  Then  the  party  split  in  twain. 
The  faction  that  seceded  from  the  Baltimore 
Convention  nominated  John  C.  Breckinridge 
on  an  ultra  pro-slavery  platform,  which  ad- 
vocated the  acquisition  of  more  slave  terri- 
tory by  the  purchase  of  Cuba. 

The  Douglas  Democrats,  having  adopted 
a  platform  which  was  strictly  in  accordance 
with  the  views  of  their  chief,  nominated  their 
favorite  statesman.  The  Know-Nothings,  or 
Americans,  hoping  to  rally  again  the  for- 
lorn fragments  of  the  Whig  party  scattered 
through  the  States,  now  called  theirs  the 
Constitutional  Union  party,  and  nominated 
John  Bell,  of  Tennessee,  and  Edward  Ever- 
ett, of  Massachusetts.  Their  platform  was  a 
smooth  and  utterly  meaningless  evasion  of 
all  living  questions. 

The  Republican  party,  when  it  hoisted 
the  names  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  of  Illinois, 
and  Hannibal  Hamlin,  of  Maine,  cited  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  as  the  charter 
of  human  liberty,  denounced  Democratic 
threats  of  disunion,  declared  that  freedom 
was  the  normal  condition  of  the  Territories 
(which  Congress  was  bound  to  defend),  and 


156      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

pronounced  in  favor  of  a  protective  tariff,  in- 
ternal improvements,  a  transcontinental  rail- 
way, and  a  law  to  give  homesteads  to  actual 
settlers  on  the  public  lands. 

Lincoln's  political  views  had  been  fully 
made  known  during  the  celebrated  debate 
with  Douglas,  two  years  before,  when  the 
two  men  canvassed  Illinois,  candidates  for  an 
election  to  the  United  States  Senate.  The 
issue  now  squarely  before  the  people  was 
that  which  involved  the  right  and  duty  of 
Congress  as  to  the  extension  of  slavery  in 
the  Territories  of  the  United  States.  Lin- 
coln's election  was  accepted  by  the  Southern 
slave-holding  States  as  the  signal  for  their 
so-called  secession.  Their  withdrawal  from 
Congress  gave  the  Republicans  a  fair  major- 
ity in  both  houses  of  Congress.  During  the 
progress  of  the  war  that  followed,  the  so- 
called  Peace  Democrats  of  the  Northern  and 
Border  States  were  opposed  by  the  War 
Democrats  and  the  Republicans,  and  when 
the  time  came  for  a  second  presidential  elec- 
tion, in  1864,  the  party  that  renominated 
Lincoln  styled  itself  the  National  Union 
party.  Under  that  title  the  fused  elements 
that  favored  a  defence  of  the  Federal  Union 
by  force  of  arms  had  already  taken  the  field 
in  several  of  the  Northern  States. 


WHEN   SLAVERY   WENT   OUT   OF   POLITICS     157 

In  addition  to  measures  designed  to  carry 
on  the  Civil  War,  in  which  they  had  the  aid 
of  the  War  Democrats,  the  Republican  ma- 
jority in  Congress  admitted  Kansas  with  its 
Free  State  Constitution,  organized  the  Ter- 
ritories of  Nebraska,  Colorado,  and  Dakota 
without  any  mention  of  the  slavery  question, 
enacted  the  Morrill  protective  tariff,  passed 
a  bill  to  authorize  the  building  of  a  trans- 
continental railway,  and  enacted  the  home- 
stead law. 

Slavery  was  now  in  a  fair  way  to  be  elim- 
inated from  the  field  of  National  politics, 
after  so  many  years  of  agitation.  It  is  not 
necessary  here  to  recount  the  steps  that  led 
to  this  consummation.  But  it  may  be  said 
that  the  Democratic  contingent  left  in  the 
North  by  their  seceding  brethren  was  con- 
sistent in  their  demand  that  there  should  be 
a  strict  construction  of  the  Constitution. 
Democrats  could  not  forsake  the  traditions 
of  their  party ;  and  they  steadily  opposed 
every  step  that  led  to  the  destruction  of 
American  slavery  ;  they  urged  that  the  war 
was  unconstitutional;  and  when  in  1864  they 
nominated  General  McClellan  for  President, 
they  demanded  that  measures  for  a  peaceful 
adjustment  of  existing  difficulties  should  be 
initiated. 


I  $8      SHORT   STUDIES  IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

Among  the  financial  measures  adopted  by 
the  Republican  Congress,  from  time  to  time, 
were  those  providing  for  a  paper  currency, 
first  by  the  Legal-tender  Act  and  then  by  the 
National  Banking  Act,  both  of  which  were 
denounced  by  Democrats  in  their  conven- 
tions. But  when  it  was  proposed,  after  the 
war  was  over,  to  resume  specie  payments, 
the  Democrats  opposed  resumption,  and  in 
some  States  they  combined  with  the  so- 
called  Greenbackers  in  local  elections.  Re- 
publicans and  Democrats  were  also  hope- 
lessly at  odds  on  the  questions  of  taxation. 
The  latter  party  was  violently  opposed  to  an 
income-tax  and  to  the  system  of  internal  rev- 
enue generally.  They  also  execrated  the 
Administration  when,  following  the  example 
of  the  Democratic  Congress,  during  the  Burr 
episode,  the  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus  was  suspended. 

The  nomination  of  Andrew  Johnson,  of 
Tennessee,  for  Vice-President,  on  the  ticket 
with  Lincoln,  in  1864,  brought  to  pass  a  con- 
dition of  things  very  much  like  that  which 
obtained  when  Harrison's  administration  was 
"  Tylerized,"  in  1841.  The  Whigs,  in  1840, 
nominated  Tyler,  a  Southern  strict  construc- 
tionist,  as  a  concession  to  those  elements  in 
politics.  When  he  became  President,  on  the 


WHEN   SLAVERY    WENT   OUT   OF   POLITICS      159 

death  of  Harrison,  he  carried  out  his  views 
in  regard  to  the  United  States  Bank,  and 
some  other  matters,  and  broke  with  his  par- 
ty. Johnson  was  nominated  by  the  Repub- 
licans with  the  expectation  that  this  would 
conciliate  the  Border  States  and  attract 
Democrats  who  were  inclined  to  the  general 
policy  of  the  Republican  party.  He  was  a 
War  Democrat,  and  he  broke  with  the  Re- 
publican party  when,  by  the  death  of  Lin- 
coln, he  came  to  the  presidential  office;  his 
views  on  negro  suffrage,  the  policy  of  recon- 
struction to  be  pursued  in  the  lately  rebel- 
lious States,  the  right  to  remove  Federal  of- 
ficials without  co-operation  of  the  Senate  and 
the  rights  of  States,  were  found  to  be  vio- 
lently and  hopelessly  opposed  to  the  policy 
of  the  majority  in  Congress.  Like  Tyler,  he 
sought  to  build  up  a  party  for  himself;  and, 
like  Tyler,  he  was  disappointed  in  that  ambi- 
tion. But  there  are  no  points  of  resemblance 
between  the  characters  of  the  two  men. 
Johnson  was  passionate,  wilful,  and  a  braw- 
ler ;  Tyler  was  not  one  of  these. 

The  effort  to  impeach  Johnson  brought 
into  strong  relief  the  question  of  the  right  of 
the  President  to  remove  high  Federal  offi- 
cials without  the  consent  of  the  Senate.  The 
so  -  called  Tenure  of  Office  Law  was  de- 


160      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

signed  to  prevent  the  President  from  making 
removals  during  a  recess  of  the  Senate.  Jef- 
ferson had  complained  that  as  few  died  and 
none  resigned,  he  could  find  no  vacancies  to 
fill  unless  he  first  made  them  by  removal. 
Johnson's  determination  to  rid  himself  of  the 
Secretary  of  War,  Mr.  Stanton,  compelled 
him  to  disregard  the  new  Tenure  of  Office 
Act;  and  this  step  brought  on  his  trial  for 
impeachment.  After  the  failure  of  this  at- 
tempt to  remove  him,  the  contest  between 
Congress  and  the  President  went  on  over 
their  variance  as  to  the  powers  of  Congress 
in  the  matter  of  reconstruction.  Congress 
claimed  the  right,  under  a  loose  construction 
of  the  Constitution,  to  lay  down  rules  for  the 
readmission  of  the  States  recently  in  rebel- 
lion. Johnson  denied  this  right. 

The  Democratic  party  naturally  espoused 
the  view  of  Johnson  ;  and,  at  its  convention 
in  1868,  nominated  Horatio  Seymour,  of  New 
York,  and  Frank  P.  Blair,  Jr.,  of  Missouri,  on 
a  platform  which  demanded  that  the  South- 
ern States  should  be  at  once  and  uncondi- 
tionally readmitted  to  representation  in  Con- 
gress, and  that  the  question  of  suffrage 
should  be  left  to  the  several  States  for  regu- 
lation. The  Republicans  took  the  opposite 
view  in  their  platform  ;  and  they  nominated 


JOHN   TYLER. 
From  a  photograph  by  Brady. 


WHEN   SLAVERY   WENT   OUT   OF   POLITICS      163 

General  Grant  for  President,  and  Schuyler 
Colfax  for  Vice-President.  As  there  was  yet 
great  confusion  existing  in  the  lately  rebel- 
lious States,  the  result  in  the  South  of  that 
presidential  election  cannot  be  accepted  as 
indicative  of  any  change  of  political  senti- 
ment. Of  the  Northern  States,  New  York, 
New  Jersey,  and  Oregon  chose  Democratic 
electors. 

The  Republican  position  as  regarding  the 
status  of  the  States  lately  in  rebellion  was 
sustained  by  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court,  early  in  Grant's  first  year  in  office. 
That  tribunal  decided  in  the  "  Texas  case  " 
that  the  ordinances  of  secession  were  null ; 
that  the  so-called  seceding  States  had  never 
been  out  of  the  Union ;  that  during  and  after 
the  act  of  rebellion  they  had  no  competent 
State  governments,  and  that  Congress  had 
the  power  to  re-establish  relations  between 
the  said  States  and  the  Federal  Union. 

The  time  of  Congress  during  Grant's  two 
terms  of  office  was  chiefly  occupied  in  the 
discussion  of  bills  to  protect  the  freedmen 
in  their  civil  rights  and  to  extend  amnes- 
ty to  the  rebels  lately  in  arms.  The  more 
radical  Republicans  opposed  general  amnes- 
ty ;  the  liberal  Republicans  insisted  on  "  uni- 
versal amnesty  and  universal  enfranchise- 


164     SHORT  STUDIES  IN  PARTY  POLITICS 

ment."  Naturally  enough,  the  Democrats 
sympathized  with  the  latter,  partly  for  the 
sake  of  the  divisions  which  would  be  made 
in  the  Republican  party,  and  partly  because 
they  hoped  to  carry  amnesty  and  in  some 
way  prevent  universal  enfranchisement. 

From  these  movements  and  contentions 
was  brought  forth  the  Liberal  Republican 
Convention  that  met  in  Cincinnati  in  1872, 
and  nominated  Horace  Greeley,  of  New 
York,  and  B.  Gratz  Brown,  of  Missouri.  The 
Democrats  were  expected  to  endorse  this 
unique  ticket  for  the  presidency,  although 
Mr.  Greeley  was  a  Protectionist  Republican 
who  had  been  a  Whig  as  long  as  that  party 
was  in  existence.  The  tariff  question,  how- 
ever, was  "  remitted  to  the  Congressional  dis- 
tricts "  by  the  Convention,  and  this  amusing 
juggle  with  words  was  solemnly  accepted  by 
the  Democratic  Convention  of  that  year,  when 
platform  and  candidates  were  both  adopted. 
A  few  "  kickers  "  in  the  party  refused  to  be 
bound  by  the  agreement  and  nominated 
Charles  O'Conor,  of  New  York,  and  John 
Quincy  Adams,  of  Massachusetts,  for  Presi- 
dent and  Vice-President.  Neither  of  these 
two  gentlemen  would  accept  the  doubtful 
honor  thrust  upon  them.  The  "  kickers,"  as 
the  popular  vote  showed,  mustered  about 


WHEN   SLAVERY   WENT  OUT  OF   POLITICS      165 

thirty  thousand  members  of  the  Democratic 
party.  The  death  of  Mr.  Greeley  before  the 
time  for  casting  the  electoral  votes  of  the 
States  arrived  threw  the  electors  into  con- 
fusion. It  was  an  unforeseen  contingency. 
When  the  votes  were  finally  canvassed,  it 
was  found  that  Grant,  nominated  for  a  sec- 
ond term,  had  two  hundred  and  eighty-six 
votes  for  President ;  Thomas  A.  Hendricks, 
a  Democrat,  had  forty-two,  and  there  were 
twenty-one  scattering.  For  Vice-President, 
Henry  Wilson,  the  Republican  nominee,  had 
two  hundred  and  eighty-six  votes,  B.  Gratz 
Brown  forty-seven,  arid  there  were  nineteen 
scattering.  The  party  founded  by  Thomas 
Jefferson  was  once  more  in  an  eclipse. 

The  questions  that  related  to  the  recon- 
struction of  the  States  lately  in  rebellion  re- 
mained still  unsettled  ;  and  these,  with  a  re- 
vival of  financial  issues,  furnished  topics  for 
political  discussion  and  for  political  divis- 
ion all  through  the  administrations  of  Grant, 
Hayes,  and  Arthur.  In  1884,  Grover  Cleve- 
land was  elected,  and  the  Democratic  party, 
after  twenty-four  years,  was  again  in  power. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  the  gradual  changes 
which  each  of  the  two  great  political  parties 
have  exhibited  since  they  emerged  from  the 
confusion  of  the  civil  war  and  the  immedi- 


1 66      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

ately  following  events.  That  war  removed 
one  of  the  main  causes  of  difference  between 
the  two  parties.  Slavery  being  extinct,  the 
conflict  for  a  time  raged  over  the  treatment 
.  of  the  ex-slaves.  The  Republicans  insisted 
that  the  freedmen  should  be  protected  in  their 
civil  rights.  The  Democrats,  denying  that 
the  freedmen  were  deprived  of  any  of  those 
rights,  rebelled  against  "  negro  domination  " 
in  the  South.  But  even  these  questions  grad- 
ually faded  from  the  view  of  the  politicians, 
and  we  find  the  platforms  of  the  two  parties 
being  gradually  cut  down  to  the  considera- 
y  tion  of  purely  economic  propositions. 

Of  these  questions,  that  of  the  tariff  has 
gradually  assumed  the  greatest  prominence. 
The  Republican  party,  which  came  into  ex- 
istence in  response  to  a  popular  demand  that 
slavery  should  not  be  further  extended  into 
the  Territories  of  the  United  States,  and 
which  was  continued  in  power  to  save  the 
Union  from  dismemberment  by  rebellion, 
gradually  took  the  attitude  of  a  protective- 
tariff  party  after  its  original  mission  had 
been  fulfilled.  On  its  way  to  that  position, 
it  tarried  long  enough  to  take  up  and  handle 
the  treatment  of  the  newly  enfranchised  col- 
ored men  of  the  South.  The  Democratic 
party,  having  opposed  the  prosecution  of 


FRANKLIN    PIERCE. 
From  a  painting  by  Healy,  in   1852,  at  the  Corcoran  Art  Gallery. 


WHEN   SLAVERY   WENT   OUT   OF   POLITICS     169 

the  war  to  put  down  the  rebellion,  as  it  had 
opposed  all  measures  designed  to  check  the 
further  advance  of  slavery  into  the  Terri- 
tories, was  finally  compelled  to  "  accept  the 
situation  "  and  to  find  other  issues  on  which 
to  construct  party  platforms.  It  has  accord- 
ingly taken  the  position  that  a  tariff  for  pro- 
tection is  not  only  inexpedient  but  unconsti- 
tutional ;  and  although  the  actions  of  the 
party  in  Congress  have  been  somewhat  in- 
consistent with  this  view,  the  Democratic  or- 
ganization has  steadily  adhered  to  its  fun- 
damental proposition  when  called  upon  to 
frame  its  creed.  One  of  the  most  emphatic 
deliverances  upon  the  subject  of  the  tariff 
was  that  made  by  the  Republicans  in  1884, 
when  Mr.  Blaine,  having  been  nominated  on 
a  protectionist  platform,  boldly  forced  the 
question  into  the  canvass  and  made  it  promi- 
nent by  his  letters  and  addresses.  In  that 
campaign  the  Democrats  declared  in  favor 
of  a  reduction  of  the  tariff,  but  evaded  the 
issue  of  protection.  They  also  declared  for 
"  honest  money,"  which  was  defined  to  be 
gold  and  silver  coin,  "  and  a  circulating  me- 
dium convertible  into  such  money  without 
loss."  The  inconsistency  of  this  declaration 
with  the  old-time  "hard- money"  theory  of 
the  Democratic  party  is  obvious. 


SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

Generally  the  Democrats  have  committed 
themselves  to  a  tariff  for  revenue  purposes 
only  ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  separate  the 
Republican  party  from  the  protective-tariff 
idea.  Both  parties  have  shown  themselves 
responsive  to  occasional  popular  demands 
for  a  change  in  an  existing  financial  policy  ; 
but  both  have  been  constant  to  a  central 
idea.  These  popular  demands,  often  unrea- 
sonable, have  created  other  political  organi- 
zations, which,  like  the  Anti-Masons  and  the 
Know-Nothings  of  an  earlier  day,  have  flit- 
ted across  the  stage  of  National  life  and 
have  disappeared  after  a  brief  exhibition. 
Of  these,  the  Grangers,  the  Prohibitionists, 
the  Greenbackers,  the  Labor  Party  men,  the 
Independent  Nationalists,  the  Silver  Infla- 
tionists, and  sundry  others,  have  crystallized 
around  economic  points  and  have  then 
passed  into  a  state  of  deliquescence. 

For  a  time  these  skirmishers  have  had 
some  influence  upon  the  two  great  parties 
that  lead  to-day  in  American  politics  ;  but 
the  solidarity  of  those  two  organizations  re- 
mains unimpaired.  It  cannot  be  said  that 
there  is  much  in  the  fundamental  belief  of 
the  Democratic  party  to  remind  one  of  the 
party  of  Jefferson's  time.  The  Republican 
party  has  outlived  the  evils  in  the  State 


WHEN   SLAVERY   WENT   OUT   OF   POLITICS     Ijl 

which  it  was  born  to  destroy.  It  has  cre- 
ated for  itself  another  and  wholly  different 
policy  in  National  affairs.  Economics,  not 
moral  questions,  now  divide  the  mass  of 
American  voters. 


IV 

THE   PARTY   PLATFORMS   OF   SIXTY   YEARS 

THE  practice  of  framing-  declarations  of 
party  principles  grew  slowly  in  the 
United  States.  It  was  not  until  1832 
that  a  National  Convention  adopted  a  series 
of  resolutions  that  might  properly  be  called 
a  party  platform.  Previous  to  that  time, 
however,  resolutions  had  been  passed  by  sun- 
dry political  assemblages  more  or  less  de- 
clarative of  the  articles  of  party  faith.  The 
Virginia  and  Kentucky  resolutions  of  1798, 
and  the  answers  of  the  various  State  legis- 
latures which  endorsed  and  accepted  those 
tenets  of  political  faith,  were  party  platforms, 
for  all  intents  and  purposes.  For  example,  a 
caucus  of  Republican  Congressmen,  which 
assembled  in  Washington,  in  1800,  adopted 
the  series  of  resolutions  which  embodied  the 
generally  accepted  articles  of  faith  of  the  Jef- 
ferson party  at  that  time — a  strict  construc- 
tion of  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution, 
freedom  of  speech,  avoidance  of  all  treaty 


PARTY  PLATFORMS  OF  SIXTY  YEARS   1/3 

complications  with  European  powers,  and  an 
advocacy  of  liberal  naturalization  laws. 

The  so-called  Clintonian  Convention,  held 
in  New  York,  August  17,  1812,  was  composed 
exclusively  of  Republican  members  of  the 
New  York  legislature  who  were  favorable  to 
the  nomination  of  DeWitt  Clinton  for  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States.  That  convention 
put  forth  a  declaration  of  political  principles, 
and  although  five  of  the  seven  sections  of  this 
curious  platform  declared  "  opposition  to " 
the  political  methods  of  the  adversaries  of 
the  Clintonians,  and  only  the  remaining  two 
were  affirmative  of  anything  whatever,  here 
was  the  promising  beginning  of  the  crystal- 
lization of  political  faiths.  Those  platform- 
makers  demanded,  among  other  things,  that 
the  country  should  be  placed  in  a  condition 
"  to  invade  and  conquer  the  British  American 
Provinces."  Those  were  warlike  times. 

The  Hartford  Convention,  in  January,  1815, 
formulated  the  extreme  Federalist  doctrines ; 
but  this  was  not  a  representative  National 
gathering.  In  the  Anti-Masonic  Convention, 
held  in  Philadelphia,  September,  1830,  ten 
States  were  represented  ;  and  when  the  sec- 
ond convention  of  that  party  assembled  in 
Baltimore,  one  year  later,  three  more  States 
sent  delegates  thereto,  and  a  very  long  and 


174     SHORT  STUDIES  IN  PARTY  POLITICS 

wordy  address  to  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  which  was  adopted  and  issued,  par- 
took of  the  nature  of  a  political  platform. 
But  when  the  party  in  opposition  to  the 
Democratic-Republicans  met  in  Baltimore, 
December  12,  1832,  the  system  of  National 
political  conventions  had  finally  taken  shape. 
The  new  party  was  known  as  the  National 
Republican.  In  that  convention  seventeen 
States  were  represented  by  one  hundred  and 
fifty-seven  delegates,  and  the  address  to  the 
people  which  was  adopted  was  just  such  an 
arraignment  of  the  existing  administration 
of  the  Government  as  the  voters  of  the  Unit- 
ed States  have  become  familiar  with  in  these 
later  years.  The  convention  nominated 
Henry  Clay  for  President,  and  John  Ser- 
geant for  Vice-President.  Clay  was  the  idol 
of  the  young  men,  and  at  the  suggestion  of 
the  convention  that  nominated  him,  an  as- 
semblage of  young  men  was  called  together 
to  ratify  the  nomination  of  Clay  and  Ser- 
geant. This  convention  met  at  Washington, 
in  May,  1832,  and  adopted  the  first  formal 
platform  ever  framed  by  a  National  Conven- 
tion. The  resolutions  were  ten  in  number. 
They  embraced  a  variety  of  topics.  On  the 
subject  of  the  tariff  they  declared  "  that  an 
adequate  protection  to  American  industry  is 


JAMES  K.  POLK. 
From  a  photograph  by  Brady. 


PARTY   PLATFORMS   OF   SIXTY   YEARS      I// 

indispensable  to  the  prosperity  of  the  coun- 
try ;  and  that  an  abandonment  of  the  policy 
at  this  period  would  be  attended  with  conse- 
quences ruinous  to  the  best  interests  of  the 
nation."  Henry  Clay's  "  American  system  " 
was  taking  shape.  It  is  worthy  of  remark 
that  this  convention,  which  represented  the 
"  outs,"  denounced  as  dangerous  the  doctrine 
"  lately  boldly  preached  in  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States "  by  William  L.  Marcy,  that 
"  to  the  victors  belong  the  spoils." 

The  Jackson  Democrats  were  not  slow  to 
make  use  of  the  system  of  National  Conven- 
tions and  platforms,  the  many  advantages  of 
which  were  readily  apparent.  Already  in 
that  year,  1832,  Jackson  had  been  nominated 
by  sundry  States  for  a  second  term  of  the 
Presidency,  and  the  National  Convention 
called  to  meet  in  Baltimore,  in  May,  1832,  had 
before  it  merely  the  duty  of  ratifying  that 
nomination  and  of  selecting  a  candidate  for 
Vice-President.  Martin  Van  Buren,  already 
designated  as  Jackson's  political  heir,  was  de- 
clared the  nominee.  As  for  a  platform,  An- 
drew Jackson  was  the  sole  and  sufficient  ex- 
ponent of  the  principles  of  the  party  that 
supported  him  for  the  second  term. 

During  the  next  eight  years  political  par- 
ties gradually  became  accustomed  to  the 


1/8      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

practice  of  holding  National  Conventions  and 
constructing  platforms.  These  latter,  how- 
ever, partook  more  of  a  personal  character 
than  a  character  of  creeds.  They  denounced 
the  nominees  of  the  opposing  parties,  and 
lauded  those  of  their  own  party.  When  the 
Whigs  conducted  their  noisy  and  enthusias- 
tic presidential  campagn,  in  1840,  they  did 
not  think  it  worth  while  to  put  forth  any 
declaration  of  principles.  "  Tippecanoe  and 
Tyler  too  "  was  enough  for  them,  and  the 
only  apparent  issue  of  that  memorable  con- 
test was  that  which  was  embodied  in  the  log- 
cabin,  hard  cider,  and  that  same  old  coon, 
which  were  the  emblems  of  the  exultant  and 
confident  campaigners.  The  Democrats,  on 
the  other  hand,  declared  that  they  were  op- 
posed to  a  policy  of  internal  improvements 
and  to  the  chartering  of  United  States  banks. 
Slavery  had  now  become  an  issue  in  politics, 
and  this,  with  the  tariff  question,  must  hence- 
forth be  looked  for  in  the  outgiving  of  politi- 
cal conventions.  We  need  not  hereafter  con- 
sider any  other  questions  than  these  two. 
The  Abolitionists  had  a  convention  at  War- 
saw, N.  Y.,  in  December,  1839,  and  nominat- 
ed James  G.  Birney  for  President.  The 
slavery  question  had  been  discussed  in  Con- 
gress and  in  the  newspapers.  So  now  the 


PARTY  PLATFORMS  OF  SIXTY  YEARS   1/9 

Democratic  Convention  which  nominated 
Van  Buren  for  President  (1840),  formulated 
this  important  declaration  :  "  Congress  has 
no  power  to  interfere  with  or  control  the  do- 
mestic institutions  of  the  several  States,  and 
such  States  are  the  sole  and  proper  judges  of 
their  own  affairs  not  prohibited  by  the  Con- 
stitution, and  all  efforts  by  Abolitionists  or 
others  made  to  induce  Congress  to  interfere 
with  questions  of  slavery  .  .  .  ought  not 
to  be  countenanced  by  any  friend  of  our 
political  institutions." 

Abolitionism  in  various  modified  forms 
gradually  assumed  the  shape  of  a  power  in 
politics.  The  Liberty  party  met  in  Buffalo, 
August  30,  1843,  and  again  nominated  James 
G.  Birney  for  the  Presidency.  The  platform 
of  that  convention  declared  against  slavery 
as  "  the  grossest  and  most  revolting  manifes- 
tation of  despotism,"  and  pledged  the  party  to 
"  carry  out  the  principles  of  equal  rights  into  all 
its  practical  consequences  and  applications." 

The  Whig  Convention  which  met  in  Balti- 
more in  May,  1844,  and  nominated  Clay  and 
Frelinghuysen,  declared  for  "  a  tariff  for  rev- 
enue to  defray  the  necessary  expenses  of  the 
Government,  and  discriminating  with  espe- 
cial reference  to  the  protection  of  the  domes- 
tic labor  of  the  country." 


180      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

In  that  same  year  the  Democratic  National 
Convention  which  met  at  Baltimore  in  May, 
and  nominated  Polk  and  Dallas,  reaffirmed 
the  platform  of  1840,  which  was  in  effect  a 
pro-slavery  platform,  and  further  declared  in 
favor  of  the  annexation  of  Texas  and  of  Ore- 
gon- 
Four  years  later,  in  May,  1848,  the  Demo- 
cratic Convention  assembled  in  Baltimore 
nominated  Cass  and  Butler,  and  reaffirmed 
the  platform  of  1840  so  far  as  it  related  to 
slavery,  justified  the  war  with  Mexico,  and 
incidentally  denounced  a  national  bank. 

The  Whig  Convention  assembled  in  Phila- 
delphia, June,  1848,  and  nominated  Taylor 
and  Fillmore.  The  platform  was  laudatory 
of  General  Taylor  and  expressive  of  confi- 
dence in  his  statesmanship,  but  on  all  living 
issues  it  was  silent. 

The  Free-Soil  party,  in  its  convention  as- 
sembled in  Buffalo,  in  June,  1848,  nominated 
Van  Buren  and  Adams,  and  denounced  the 
action  of  the  other  two  parties,  and  declared 
in  favor  of  "  no  interference  by  Congress 
with  slavery  within  the  limits  of  any  State." 
The  same  platform,  however,  further  af- 
firmed that  the  Free-Soil  party  was  irrevo- 
cably committed  to  the  doctrine  "  no  more 
slave  States  and  no  more  slave  Territory ;  " 


PARTY   PLATFORMS   OF   SIXTY   YEARS      l8l 

and  also  "  in  favor  of  such  a  tariff  of  duties 
as  will  raise  revenue  adequate  to  defray  the 
expenses  of  the  Federal  Government."  The 
sixteenth  resolution  declared  as  follows  : 
"  That  we  inscribe  on  our  banners  Free  Soil, 
Free  Speech,  Free  Labor,  and  Free  Men, 
and  under  it  we  will  fight  on  and  fight  ever 
until  a  triumphant  victory  shall  reward  our 
exertions." 

Pierce  and  King  were  the  nominees  of  the 
Democratic  Convention  which  met  in  Balti- 
more in  June,  1852.  The  platform  on  which 
these  candidates  were  placed  reaffirmed  the 
sections  of  the  previous  platforms  relating  to 
slavery  from  1840  onward,  with  additional 
declarations  in  favor  of  the  maintenance  of 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  then  engrossing  the 
attention  of  the  people. 

The  Whig  Convention  assembled  in  Balti- 
more in  June,  1852,  and  nominated  Scott  and 
Graham.  The  platform  favored  a  tariff  to 
be  levied  "  with  just  discrimination,  whereby 
suitable  encouragement  may  be  afforded  to 
American  industry."  The  platform  also  ex- 
pressed its  acquiescence  in  the  acceptation 
of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  and  other  sec- 
tions of  the  celebrated  compromise  of  1850, 
and  deprecated  "  all  further  agitation  of  the 
question  thus  settled." 


1 82      SHORT  STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

The  Free-Soil  party  assembled  in  Pitts- 
burgh, in  National  Convention,  in  August, 
1852,  and  nominated  John  P.  Hale  and 
George  W.  Julian.  The  most  important 
plank  of  the  platform  of  that  year  was  the 
sixth  section,  which  declared  "  that  slavery 
is  a  sin  against  God  and  a  crime  against  man 
which  no  human  enactment  nor  usage  can 
make  right,  and  that  Christianity,  humanity, 
and  patriotism  alike  demand  its  abolition." 
The  platform  also  denounced  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law  and  the  compromise  measures  of 
1850. 

The  American  party  made  its  appearance 
in  National  politics  in  a  convention  held  in 
Philadelphia  in  February,  1856,  nominating 
Millard  Fillmore  and  Andrew  Jackson  Don- 
elson.  The  most  significant  plank  of  the 
platform  of  that  convention  was  "  Americans 
must  rule  America,  and  to  that  end  native- 
born  citizens  should  be  selected  for  all 
State,  Federal,  and  municipal  offices  of  gov- 
ernment employment  in  preference  to  all 
others."  The  thirteenth  section  of  that  plat- 
form declared  in  favor  of  "  opposition  to  the 
reckless  and  unwise  policy  of  the  present 
(Democratic)  administration  in  the  general 
management  of  our  National  affairs,  .  .  . 
as  shown  in  the  reopening  of  sectional  strife 


JAMES   BUCHANAN. 
From  a  photograph  by  Brady. 


PARTY   PLATFORMS   OF   SIXTY   YEARS      1 8$ 

by  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise," 
etc. 

The  Democratic  Convention  held  in  Cin- 
cinnati, June,  1856,  nominated  James  Bu- 
chanan and  John  C.  Breckinridge,  and  while 
it  contained  no  immediate  reference  to  the 
tariff,  reaffirmed  the  former  position  of  the 
Democratic  party  on  the  slavery  question 
and  repudiated  all  sectional  parties  and  plat- 
forms concerning-  domestic  slavery  which 
would  "  seek  to  embroil  States  and  excite  to 
treason  an  armed  resistance  to  law  in  the 
Territories."  The  platform  further  declared 
in  favor  of  "  non-interference  of  Congress 
with  slavery  in  the  Territories  or  in  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia  ;  "  and  also  "  in  favor  of 
free  seas  and  progressive  free-trade  through- 
out the  world." 

The  first  Republican  National  Convention 
assembled  in  Philadelphia,  June,  1856,  and 
nominated  Fremont  and  Dayton.  At  that 
convention  were  adopted  the  principles 
enunciated  in  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence. The  platform  further  declared  it  to 
be  the  imperative  duty  of  Congress  "  to  pro- 
hibit in  the  Territories  those  twin  relics  of 
barbarism,  polygamy  and  slavery." 

The  Whig  Convention  assembled  in  Bal- 
timore in  September,  1856,  and  nominated 


1 86      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

Fillmore  and  Donelson.  The  platform  was 
silent  on  the  subject  of  slavery  and  the  tar- 
iff, but  declared  "  as  a  fundamental  article  of 
political  faith  an  absolute  necessity  for  avoid- 
ing geographical  parties." 

In  May,  1860,  the  National  Republican 
party  again  assembled  in  Chicago,  and  nomi- 
nated Abraham  Lincoln  and  Hannibal  Ham- 
lin.  The  platform  declared  in  favor  of  the 
maintenance  of  the  principles  promulgated 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  fur- 
ther declared  that  "  the  normal  condition  of 
all  the  territory  of  the  United  States  is  that 
of  freedom."  It  also  denied  the  authority  of 
Congress  or  any  territorial  legislature  or 
any  individuals  "  to  give  legal  existence 
to  slavery  in  any  Territory  of  the  United 
States."  Furthermore,  it  was  declared  that 
"  sound  policy  requires  such  an  adjustment 
of  imports  as  to  encourage  the  development 
of  the  industrial  interest  of  the  whole  coun- 
try." 

The  Douglas  Democratic  Convention  of 
that  year  (1860)  assembled  first  in  Charleston 
and  afterward  in  Baltimore,  and  committed 
the  party  to  the  proposition  that  it  "  will 
abide  by  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States  on  questions  of  consti- 
tutional law.  It  also  declared  against  State 


PARTY   PLATFORMS   OF   SIXTY   YEARS      187 

legislation  to  defeat  the  execution  of  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law. 

The  conservative,  or  pro-slavery,  wing  of 
the  Democratic  party  assembled  first  in 
Charleston  and  afterward  in  Baltimore,  in 
1860,  and  nominated  Breckinridge  and  Lane. 
The  platform  reaffirmed  the  previous  Demo- 
cratic platforms  on  the  subject  of  slavery, 
with  the  additional  statement  that  a  Terri- 
torial government  is  merely  temporary,  and 
that  during  its  existence  "  all  citizens  of  the 
United  States  have  an  equal  right  to  settle, 
with  their  property,  in  the  Territory  "  with- 
out any  danger  of  their  rights  being  im- 
paired or  destroyed  by  Congressional  or 
Territorial  legislation.  Furthermore,  the 
platform  declared  that  "  it  is  the  duty  of 
the  Federal  Government  to  protect  these 
rights  ;  "  and  the  action  of  State  legislatures 
to  hinder  the  execution  of  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law  was  denounced. 

The  Republican  Union  party,  so  called, 
met  in  convention  in  Baltimore  in  June,  1864, 
and  nominated  Abraham  Lincoln  and  An- 
drew Johnson.  As  to  slavery  the  platform 
declared,  "  Justice  and  the  national  safety  de- 
mand its  extirpation  from  the  soil  of  the  re- 
public." 

In  that   year  (1864)  the  Democratic  Con- 


1 88      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

vention  assembled  in  Chicago  in  August  and 
nominated  McClellan  and  Pendleton.  The 
most  impressive  declaration  of  the  platform 
of  that  convention  was  as  follows :  "  After 
four  years  of  failure  to  restore  the  Union  by 
the  experiment  of  war,  it  has  become  impera- 
tive that  immediate  efforts  be  made  for  a  ces- 
sation of  hostilities,  with  a  view  of  an  ulti- 
mate convention  of  all  the  States,  or  other 
peaceable  means,  to  the  end  that  at  the  ear- 
liest practicable  moment  peace  may  be  re- 
stored on  the  basis  of  the  federal  union  of  all 
the  States." 

The  Republican  Convention  which  met  at 
Chicago  in  May,  1868,  and  nominated  Grant 
and  Wilson,  made  no  specific  declaration  as 
to  slavery  in  the  States,  nor  as  to  the  tariff. 
The  platform  was  chiefly  taken  up  with  con- 
siderations of  financial  questions  incidental  to 
the  adjustment  of  the  great  national  debt  and 
to  reconstruction  problems  growing  out  of 
the  previously  disturbed  condition  of  the 
country. 

The  Democratic  Convention  which  assem- 
bled in  the  city  of  New  York,  July,  1868,  and 
nominated  Horatio  Seymour  and  Frank  P. 
Blair,  was  also  chiefly  interested  with  ques- 
tions referring  to  the  reconstruction  of  the 
Union,  the  restoration  of  civil  rights,  and  sim- 


PARTY   PLATFORMS   OF   SIXTY   YEARS      189 

ilar  matters  ;  but  that  convention  declared  in 
favor  of  "  a  tariff  for  revenue  upon  foreign 
imports,  and  such  equal  taxation  under  the 
internal  revenue  laws  as  will  afford  incidental 
protection  to  domestic  manufactures,  and  as 
will,  without  impairing  the  revenue,  impose 
the  least  burden  upon,  and  best  promote  and 
encourage  the  great  industrial  interests  of, 
the  country." 

The  Labor  Reform  party  of  1872  met  in 
convention  in  Cincinnati  and  nominated 
Charles  O'Conor ;  but  the  final  action  on 
the  nomination  was  not  complete  until  June 
of  that  year.  The  convention  declared  that 
"  Congress  should  so  modify  the  tariff  as  to 
admit  free  such  articles  of  common  use  as  we 
can  neither  produce  nor  grow,  and  lay  duties 
for  revenue  mainly  upon  articles  of  luxury 
and  upon  such  articles  of  manufacture  as 
will,  we  having  the  raw  materials,  assist  in 
further  developing  the  resources  of  our 
country." 

The  Liberal  Republican  party,  after  slowly 
crystallizing  and  taking  shape,  assembled  in 
Cincinnati  in  May,  1872,  and  nominated  Hor- 
ace Greeley  and  B.  Gratz  Brown.  The  most 
important  plank  in  the  platform  of  that  con- 
vention is  as  follows:  "Recognizing  that 
there  are  in  our  midst  honest  but  irreconcil- 


190      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

able  differences  of  opinion  in  regard  to  the 
respective  systems  of  protection  and  free- 
trade,  we  remit  the  discussion  of  the  subject 
to  the  people  in  their  Congressional  districts, 
and  the  decision  of  Congress  thereon,  wholly 
free  from  Executive  interference  or  dicta- 
tion." 

The  Democratic  party  that  year  met  in 
Baltimore  in  July,  and  nominated  Greeley 
and  Brown,  and  also  accepted  the  Cincinnati 
Liberal  Republican  party's  platform  "  as  es- 
sential to  just  government." 

The  Republican  party  in  convention  in 
Philadelphia,  June,  1872,  nominated  Grant 
and  Coif  ax.  As  to  a  revenue  tariff,  the  plat- 
form declared  that  the  details  of  such  a 
scheme  "  should  be  so  adjusted  as  to  aid  in 
securing  remunerative  wages  to  labor  and 
promote  the  industrial  prosperity  and  growth 
of  the  whole  country." 

The  Independent  (Greenback)  party  held  a 
convention  in  Indianapolis  in  May,  1876,  and 
demanded  the  repeal  of  the  act  to  resume 
specie  payments,  and  protested  against  any 
further  contraction  of  the  currency. 

The  Republican  Convention  which  assem- 
bled in  Cincinnati  in  June,  1876,  demanded 
further  progress  in  the  direction  of  a  resump- 
tion of  specie  payments,  but  had  nothing 


THURLOW    WEED. 

From  an  unpublished  photograph  by  Disderi,  Paris,  in  1861.     In  the  pos- 
session of  Thurlow  Weed  Barnes. 


PARTY   PLATFORMS   OF   SIXTY   YEARS      1 93 

more  significant  to  say  upon  the  tariff  ques- 
tion than  that  "  all  revenue  necessary  to  the 
maintenance  of  the  Government  must  be  de- 
rived from  duties  on  imports,  which  so  far 
as  possible  should  be  adjusted  so  as  to  pro- 
tect the  interests  of  American  labor  and 
advance  the  prosperity  of  the  whole  coun- 
try." 

The  Democratic  party  assembled  in  con- 
vention in  St.  Louis,  June,  1876,  nominated 
Tilden  and  Hendricks,  and  denounced  the 
resumption  law  of  1875  and  demanded  its 
repeal.  Upon  the  tariff  question  its  utter- 
ance was  as  follows:  "We  demand  that  all 
custom-house  taxation  shall  be  only  for  rev- 
enue." 

In  1880  the  Republican  party  in  convention 
in  Chicago  in  June,  nominated  Garfield  and 
Arthur,  and  declared  that  "the  duties  levied 
for  the  purpose  of  revenue  should  so  discrim- 
inate as  to  favor  American  labor." 

The  National  Greenback  Convention  at 
Chicago,  June,  1880,  declared  in  favor  of  the 
abolition  of  national  banks,  substitution  of 
legal-tender  currency,  and  unlimited  coinage 
of  silver ;  it  also  demanded  a  graduated  in- 
come-tax. 

The  Democratic  Convention  which  assem- 
bled in  Cincinnati  June,  1880,  and  nomi- 
13 


194      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

nated  Hancock  and  English,  declared  briefly 
in  favor  of  "  a  tariff  for  revenue  only." 

The  Republican  Convention  which  met  in 
Chicago  in  June,  1884,  and  nominated  Elaine 
and  Logan,  made  this  declaration  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  tariff:  "We  therefore  demand 
that  the  imposition  of  duties  on  foreign  im- 
ports shall  be  made  not  for  revenue  only, 
but  that  in  raising  the  requisite  revenues  of 
the  Government  such  duties  shall  be  so  lev- 
ied as  to  afford  security  to  our  diversified 
industries  and  protection  to  the  rights  and 
wages  of  the  laborers,  to  the  end  that  active 
and  intelligent  labor,  as  well  as  capital,  may 
have  its  just  reward  and  the  laboring  man  his 
full  share  in  the  national  prosperity." 

The  Democratic  Convention  which  nomi- 
nated Cleveland  and  Hendricks  met  in  Chi- 
cago in  July,  1884,  and  made  this  declara- 
tion on  the  subject  of  the  tariff:  "Knowing 
full  well,  however,  that  legislation  affecting 
the  occupations  of  the  people  should  be  cau- 
tious and  conservative  in  method,  not  in  ad- 
vance of  public  opinion,  but  responsive  to  its 
demands,  the  Democratic  party  is  pledged 
to  revise  the  tariff  in  a  spirit  of  fairness  to  all 
interests,  but  in  making  reduction  in  taxa- 
tion it  is  not  proposed  to  injure  any  domes- 
tic industries,  but  rather  to  promote  their 


PARTY   PLATFORMS   OF   SIXTY   YEARS      1 95 

healthy  growth.  .  .  .  We  demand  that 
federal  taxation  shall  be  exclusively  for  pub- 
lic purposes  and  shall  not  exceed  the  needs 
of  the  Government  economically  adminis- 
tered." 

In  June,  1888,  the  Democratic  party  in  con- 
vention in  St.  Louis  nominated  Cleveland 
and  Thurman.  The  platform  adopted  at 
that  convention  contained  the  following  dec- 
laration on  the  all-absorbing  topic  of  the  tar- 
iff :  "  Our  established  domestic  industries 
and  enterprises  should  not  and  need  not  be 
endangered  by  the  reduction  and  correction 
of  the  burdens  of  taxation.  On  the  contrary, 
a  fair  and  careful  revision  of  our  tax  laws, 
with  due  allowance  for  the  difference  be- 
tween the  wages  of  American  and  foreign 
labor,  must  encourage  and  promote  every 
branch  of  such  industries  and  enterprises  by 
giving  them  assurance  of  extended  market 
and  steady  and  continuous  operations  in  the 
interests  of  American  labor,  which  should  in 
no  event  be  neglected.  The  revision  of  our 
tax  laws  contemplated  by  the  Democratic 
party  should  promote  the  advantage  of  such 
labor  by  cheapening  the  cost  of  the  necessa- 
ries of  life  in  the  home  of  every  workman  and 
at  the  same  time  securing  to  him  steady  and 
remunerative  employment." 


196      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

The  Republican  party  in  its  convention  in 
Chicago,  June,  1888,  nominated  Harrison 
and  Morton,  and  made  the  following  decla- 
ration on  the  subject  of  the  tariff:  "  We  are 
uncompromisingly  in  favor  of  the  American 
system  of  protection.  We  protest  against  its 
destruction  as  proposed  by  the  President  and 
his  party.  They  serve  the  interests  of  Eu- 
rope ;  we  will  support  the  interests  of  Amer- 
ica. We  accept  the  issue  and  confidently 
appeal  to  the  people  for  their  judgment. 
The  protective  system  must  be  maintained. 
Its  abandonment  has  always  been  followed 
by  disaster  to  all  interests  except  those  of 
the  usurer  and  the  sheriff.  We  denounce 
the  Mills  bill  as  destructive  to  the  general 
business,  to  labor,  and  the  farming  interests 
of  the  country." 

The  Republican  Convention  which  met  in 
Minneapolis  in  June,  1892,  and  nominated 
Harrison  and  Reid,  made  the  following  dec- 
larations : 

"  We  affirm  the  American  doctrine  of  pro- 
tection. We  call  attention  to  its  growth 
abroad.  We  maintain  that  the  prosperous 
condition  of  our  country  is  largely  due  to 
the  wise  revenue  legislation  of  the  Republi- 
can Congress. 

"  We  believe  that  all  articles  which  cannot 


PARTY   PLATFORMS   OF   SIXTY   YEARS      197 

be  produced  in  the  United  States,  except 
luxuries,  should  be  admitted  free  of  duty, 
and  that  on  all  imports  coming  into  compe- 
tition with  the  products  of  American  labor 
there  should  be  levied  duties  equal  to  the  dif- 
ference between  wages  abroad  and  at  home." 

The  Democratic  party  in  June,  1892,  held  its 
convention  in  Chicago  and  nominated  Cleve- 
land and  Stevenson.  Its  most  important  dec- 
laration on  the  subject  of  the  tariff  was  that 
embodied  in  the  third  section,  as  follows : 
"  We  denounce  the  Republican  protection  as 
a  fraud,  a  robbery  of  the  great  majority  of  the 
American  people  for  the  benefit  of  the  few. 
We  declare  it  to  be  a  fundamental  principle 
of  the  Democratic  party  that  the  Federal 
Government  has  no  constitutional  power  to 
impose  and  collect  tariff  duties,  except  for 
the  purposes  of  revenue  only,  and  we  de- 
mand that  the  collection  of  such  taxes  shall 
be  limited  to  the  necessities  of  the  govern- 
ment when  honestly  and  economically  ad- 
ministered. 

"  We  denounce  the  McKinley  tariff  law 
enacted  by  the  Fifty-First  Congress  as  the 
culminating  atrocity  of  class  legislation.  We 
endorse  the  efforts  made  by  the  Democrats 
of  the  present  Congress  to  modify  its  most 
oppressive  features  in  the  direction  of  free 


198      SHORT   STUDIES   IN   PARTY   POLITICS 

raw  materials  and  cheaper  manufactured 
goods  that  enter  into  general  consumption, 
and  we  promise  its  repeal  as  one  of  the  benef- 
icent results  that  will  follow  the  action  of 
the  people  in  intrusting  power  to  the  Demo- 
cratic party." 


INDEX 


ABOLITIONISM,  in  Northern 
States,  iigetseq.,  179 

Abolitionists.  See  Liberty 
Party 

Adams,  John,  roundly  abused, 
12,  13,  14 ;  chosen  for  presi- 
dent, 22,  36  ;  Hamilton's  cool- 
ness toward,  35  ;  his  cabinet 
broken  up,  37 ;  Hamilton's 
attack  on,  38,  40 ;  his  remov- 
als and  appointments,  47 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  runs  for 
presidency,  71  ;  a  loose  con- 
structionist,  71  ;  his  policy 
alienates  the  strict  construc- 
tionists,  76,  77  ;  cold  and  re- 
served, 79,  95  ;  and  Andrew 
Jackson,  79  ;  his  campaign  for 
presidency  against  Jackson, 
80-85,  I24 

Adet,  M.,  his  electioneering  let- 
ter in  behalf  of  Jefferson,  22, 

25 

Alien  and  Sedition  Laws,  the, 
27  et  seq. 

American  Party,  the,  129,  130 ; 
platform,  182 

American  politics.  See  Politics, 
American 

Ames,  Fisher,  his  words  con- 
cerning Adams  and  Jefferson, 
22,  25 

Anti- Federalist  Party,  "more 
French  than  the  French,"  i  ; 
and  the  Constitution,  2,  3  ;  and 
lotteries  and  loans,  4,  5  ;  on 
tariff  and  National  Bank,  5- 
10  ;  known  as  Republicans,  n 

Anti-Masonic  diversion,  the,  94- 
96,  170 


B 


BACHE,  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN, 

20 

Bank,  the  National,  5,  9,  10,  56  ; 
Jackson's  war  on,  93 ;  Clay 
and,  93,  94 

Barlow,  Joel,  31 

Barn-burners,  120,  123,  124 

Bayard,  James,  41 

Bell,  John,  candidate  for  presi- 
dent, 155 

Benton,  Jesse,  his  abuse  of  An- 
drew Jackson,  84 

Benton,  Thomas  H.,  his  words 
concerning  the  Clay -Ran- 
dolph duel,  78  ;  and  the  Na- 
tional Bank,  93  ;  his  words  on 
the  bills  to  abrogate  Missouri 
Compromise,  141 

Bingham,  Kinsley  S. .Governor, 
146 

Birney,  James  G.  ,and  the  Liber- 
ty Party,  103,  112-115, 178-  *79 

Blaine,  James  G. ,  169 

Blair,  Francis  P.,  92 

Blair,  Frank  P.,  Jr.,  candidate 
for  vice-president,  160 

"  Blue  Lights,"  58 

Bradley,  Stephen  R.,  and  the 
caucus,  54 

Breckinridge,  John  C.,  candi- 
date for  vice-president,  146 

Brown,  B.  Gratz,  candidate  for 
vice-president,  164,  165 

Buchanan,  James,  candidate  for 
president,  146 

Burr,  Aaron,  14,  22,  36,  38 ;  in 
the  canvass  of  1800,  38-40,  41  ; 
trial  for  treason,  50 

Butler,  Benjamin  F.,  at  Buffalo 
Convention,  124 


2OO 


INDEX 


CALHOUN,  JOHN  C.,  urges  war 
with  England,  56 ;  a  leader  of 
Republicans,  70 ;  aloosecon- 
structionist,  72  ;  candidate  for 
vice-presidency,  71,  83,  85 ; 
Andrew  Jackson's  dislike  for, 
91;  and  protection,  97;  his 
last  speech,  135,  136 

California,  application  of,  for 
admission  as  a  State,  130,  131 

Campaign,  Presidential,  of  Jack- 
son and  Adams,  80-85 ;  of 
Harrison  in  1840,  103,  104, 
178 

Cass,  Lewis,  75  ;  nominated  for 
president,  123 

Caucus,  origin  of  the  word,  53  ; 
convention  substituted  for,  53, 

54.  55 

Chesapeake  affair,  the,  50 

Civil  War,  156,  157 

Clay,  Henry,  urges  war  with 
England,  56  ;  and  the  treaty 
of  Ghent,  58,  62,  71  ;  birth  and 
early  life,  69,  70 ;  speaker  of 
the  House,  70  ;  runs  for  pres- 
idency, 71,  72,  93,  94,  107,  114, 
174  ;  a  loose  constructionist, 
71  ;  secretary  of  state,  72  ; 
incurs  enmity  of  Andrew  Jack- 
son by  supporting  Adams,  75  ; 
his  duel  with  Randolph,  77, 
78  ;  his  winning  manner,  79, 
80  ;  personal  attacks  on,  83  ; 
and  the  Mrs.  Eaton  scandal, 
91  ;  and  the  National  Bank,  93, 
94,  97  ;  his  compromise  tariff, 
96,  104;  his  "Raleigh  "and 
"Alabama  "  letters,  107,  in  ; 
his  return  to  the  Senate  and 
last  work,  133-135 

Clinton,  De  Witt,  nominated 
for  president,  57,  173 

Clinton,  George,  13,  14  ;  chosen 
vice-president,  55 

Colfax,  Schuyler,  163 

Congress,  log-rolling  in,  4  ;  elec- 
toral contest  in  1800,  40,  41  ; 


the  president's  visits  to,  45  ; 
debates  in,  on  slavery,  118, 
119;  and  Andrew  Johnson, 
160;  during  Grants  presi- 
dency, 163 

Constitution,  the  opinions  con- 
cerning, 2,  3 ;  difference  of 
view  concerning  construction 

of,  3 

Convention,  political,  substi- 
tuted for  caucus,  53,  54 ;  the 
first,  57  ;  the  Hartford,  58, 
173  ;  the  Buffalo,  124  ;  the 
Clintonian,  173 ;  various  con- 
ventions during  sixty  years, 
172  et  seq. 

Corwin,  Thomas,  in. 

Crawford,  W.  H.,  56,  71,  85 

Cumberland  Road  Bill,  the,  50 


DAYTON,  WILLIAM  L. ,  147 
Democratic  Party.  See  Demo- 
cratic-Republican Party 
Democratic-Republican  Party, 
the,  named  so  by  Jefferson, 
10,  ii ;  known  as  Republican 
Party,  n  ;  and  France,  17, 18  ; 
Jeffersonian  Republicans,  20  ; 
victory  of,  in  1800,  38,  39  ; 
political  creed  of,  formulated 
by  Jefferson,  42,  43  ;  first 
schism  in,  48 ;  majority  in 
Congress,  49  ;  called  Demo- 
cratic Party,  49,  63,  64  ;  prin- 
ciples of,  64-69 ;  loose  con- 
structionists  of,  69  etseq.,  80  ; 
factions  in,  76,  78  ;  named 
"Tories"  and  "  Locofoco," 
98  ;  Jackson  Democrats,  99, 
100,  177 ;  platform  of,  in  1840, 
104  ;  identified  with  support 
of  slavery,  106  ;  schism  in  New 
York,  120 ;  in  favor  of  easy 
naturalization,  129 ;  endorse 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  140  ; 
platform  of,  in  1860,  152,  155  ; 
Douglas  Democrats,  152,  155, 


INDEX 


2O I 


186;  Peace  and  War  Demo- 
crats, 156 ;  platform  in  1868, 
160 ;  again  in  power,  165  ; 
changes  in,  after  the  Civil 
War,  165-171  ;  declaration  of, 
on  slavery,  in  1840,  179  ;  plat- 
form in  1840  and  later,  180  et 
seq.;  conservative  pro-slavery 
wing  of,  187 

Dodge,  Henry,  candidate  for 
vice-president,  124 

Donelson,  Andrew  Jackson, 
candidate  for  vice-presidency, 
146 

Douglas,  Stephen  A  ,  his  politi- 
cal views,  152-156 ;  Douglas 
Democrats,  152,  155 

Duane,  William,  37 


E 


EATON,  MRS.,  88,  91 
Election,   the   second   national, 

14,  15  ;  the  first  conducted  on 

strictly  political  lines,  21,  22 
Electoral    count,    the   first  dis- 
puted, 39-42  ;   the  first  State 

count  disputed,  62 
Electors,  Presidential,  the  first 

methods  of,  13,  14 
Ellmaker,  Amos,  candidate  for 

vice-president,  95 
Embargo  and  Non-Intercourse 

acts,  the,  68,  69 
England,    attitude    of,    toward 

American  commerce,  56  ;  war 

with,  in  1812,  57,  58 
"  Era  of  Good  Feeling,"  the,  69 
Everett,  Edward,  candidate  for 

vice-president,  155 
Expunging  Resolutions,  the,  93 


"  FEDERALIST,"  the,  influence 
of,  3 

Federalist  Party,  the,  stigma- 
tized as  being  pro-English,  i ; 


and  the  Constitution,  3 ;  and 
lotteries  and  loans,  4  ;  on  tar- 
iff and  National  Bank,  5-10  ; 
and  France,  17  ;  downfall  of, 
27.  35-  S3,  61  ;  Jefferson's  be- 
lief concerning,  29,  30;  Ham- 
ilton the  real  leader  of,  32,  35  ; 
Independent,  35  ;  behavior  of, 
in  electoral  dispute  of  1800, 
40 ;  the  price  demanded  by, 
for  Jefferson's  election,  41,  42  ; 
and  the  Hartford  Convention, 
58 

Fillmore,  Millard,  candidate  for 
president,  94,  146 

Foote,  Senator,  118 

Force  Bill,  the,  97 

France,  sympathy  for,  in  Amer- 
ica, i,  17  ;  declares  war 
against  England,  Spain,  and 
Holland,  18 ;  her  insult  to 
America,  25,  26 ;  America's 
answer  to,  27  ;  purchase  of 
Louisiana  territory  from,  47 

Freemasonry  in  politics,  94-96 

Free-soil  Party,  139  ;  denounced 
slavery,  140,  141 ;  platform  of, 
180,  181,  182 

Fremont,  John  C.,  candidate 
for  president,  147,  148 

Freneau,  Philip,  20 

Fugitive  Slave  Law,  the,  135, 
139.  140 


GENET,  Citizen,  18 

Gerry,  Elbridge,  26 

Ghent,  Treaty  of,  the,  58 

"  Gilded  Trap,"  2 

Goodrich,  Elizur,  removal  of, 
46 

Grant,  General,  as  president, 
163-165 

Gray,  Mr.,  his  words  concern- 
ing a  caucus,  54,  55 

Greeley,  Horace,  candidate  for 
president,  164 

Green,  Duff,  91,  92 


2O2 


INDEX 


Greenback  Party,  the,  158,  170, 

190,  193 
Griswold,  Mr.,  31 

H 

HALE,  JOHN  P.,  Senator,  118  ; 
candidate  for  presidency,  140 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  3  ;  leader 
of  the  Federalists,  3,  4 ;  his 
"  log-rolling  "  scheme,  4  ;  his 
funding  bill,  5 ;  his  report  on 
manufactures,  6 ;  proposes 
National  Bank,  9  ;  quarrels  of 
Jefferson  and,  12  ;  real  leader 
of  the  Federalists,  32  ;  mobbed 
and  stoned,  32 ;  opposed  to 
Sedition  Bill,  35  ;  his  coolness 
toward  Adams,  35  ;  his  at- 
tack on  Adams,  38,  41,  42 

Harrison,  William  Henry,  can- 
didate for  president,  96,  98, 
99,  103 ;  elected,  103,  104 ; 
dies  in  office,  103 

Hartford  Convention,  the,  58 

Hendricks,  Thomas  A.,  165 

Hill,  Isaac,  91 

Hunkers,  120 


J 


JACKSON,  ANDREW,  runs  for 
presidency,  71;  his  animosity 
toward  Clay,  75,  91  ;  and 
John  Quincy  Adams,  79  ;  his 
campaign  against  Adams,  80- 
85  ;  elected  president,  84,  85  ; 
personal  attacks  on,  83,  84  ; 
his  lack  of  education,  85  ;  per- 
sonal traits,  85,  86  ;  his  inau- 
gural levee,  86 ;  his  appoint- 
ments, 87  ;  originator  of  the 
spoils  system,  87,  88  ;  discon- 
tinues cabinet  councils,  88  ; 
and  the  Mrs.  Eaton  scandal, 
88,  91  ;  his  dislike  for  Cal- 
houn,  91  ;  his  "  Kitchen  Cabi- 
net," 91,  92;  his  "pocket 
veto,"  92  ;  his  war  on  the  Na- 


tional Bank,  93 ;  once  more 
president,  96,  98,  177  ;  politi- 
cal creed,  99,  100 

Jay,  John,  burned  in  effigy,  28 

Jay  Treaty,  the,  19,  20 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  leader  of 
Anti-Federalism,  3,  4 ;  in  the 
cabinet,  10  ;  his  sympathy  for 
the  French,  10  ;  gives  name 
to  Democatic  -  Republican 
party,  10,  n  ;  quarrels  of 
Hamilton  and,  12,  14 ;  and 
Genet,  18 ;  Jeffersonian  Re- 
publicans, 20 ;  and  Freneau, 
21 ;  chosen  vice  -  president, 
22  ;  his  belief  concerning  the 
Federalists,  29,  30 ;  his  quiet 
policy,  36 ;  nominated  for 
president,  36 ;  elected,  41  ; 
his  inauguration,  42  ;  formu- 
lates political  creed  of  Demo- 
cratic-Republican Party,  42, 
43 ;  his  innovations,  45  ;  his 
removals  from  office,  46,  47  ; 
Randolph's  attacks  on,  49 ; 
declines  third  term,  53,  77 

Johnson,  Andrew,  candidate  for 
vice-president,  158  ;  his  polit- 
ical and  personal  character, 
159 ;  endeavors  to  remove, 
159.  160 

Johnson,  Richard  M. ,  Colonel, 
chosen  vice-president,  99 


K 

KANSAS-NEBRASKA  agitations, 
the,  140 ;  the  conflict  in,  142, 
148,  151,  152 

Kendall,  Amos,  91 

King,  Rufus,  61 

"  Kitchen  Cabinet,"  the,  91,  92 

Know-Nothing  Party,  the,  146, 
155 


LABOR  Reform  Party,  189 
Legal-tender  Act,  the,  158 


INDEX 


203 


Lewis,  William  B. ,  91 

Liberty   Party    and    James   G. 

Birney,  103,  112-115,  178,  179 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  his  cabinet, 

4 ;  and  the  "  pocket  veto,"  92  ; 

opposes  Mexican  War,   in  ; 

his  words  on  the  campaign  of 

1848,  127,  128 ;  his  judgment 

on   Fremont's   canvass,    148 ; 

elected  president,  155,  156 
Locofoco,  98 

Log-rolling  in  Congress,  4 
Loose     Constructionists.      See 

Democratic-Republican  Party 
Louisiana,  purchase  of  territory 

from  France,  47,  48 
Lowell,    James      Russell,     the 

"Biglow  Papers,"  in 
Lyon,  Matthew,  31,  32 


M 

MACKAY,  WILLIAM,  his  words 
concerning  Washington,  5, 
45;  on  the  first  tariff  bill,  9 

Madison,  James,  introduces  to 
Congress  the  first  tariff  bill, 
6  ;  and  the  Virginia  and  Ken- 
tucky Resolutions,  30  ;  chosen 
for  president,  53,  55,  56 ;  re- 
nominated,  57 ;  re-elected, 
58.61 

Mangum,  W.  P. ,  99 

Marcy,  William  L. ,  and  the 
spoils  system,  87,  88,  177 

Marshall,  John,  26 

McClellan,  General,  157 

Mexican  War,  the,  in 

Missouri,  admitted  to  the  Elec- 
toral College,  62  ;  Compro- 
mise, in,  141,  142 

Monroe  Doctrine,  the,  61,  62 

Monroe,  James,  and  the  Louisi- 
ana purchase,  47,  48  ;  his  doc- 
trine, 61,  62  ;  vetoes  the  Cum- 
berland Road  bill,  72 

Morgan,  William,  murder  of, 
94 


N 

NATIONAL  Banking    Act,  the, 

158 

Nebraska  Bill,  the,  141,  142 
"  New  Roof,"  2 
New  York,  the  pivotal  State,  37 
Nicholas,  George,  30 


O 

O'CoNOR,  CHARLES,  164 

"  Omnibus  Bill,"  the,  139,  140 


PIERCE,  FRANKLIN,  candidate 
for  presidency,  140 

Pinckney,  C.  C.,  26,  56 

Pinckney,  Thomas,  22,  36 

Platform,  Party,  the  first,  172 ; 
various  platforms  during  sixty 
years,  172,  et  seq.  See  al- 
so .  Democratic  -  Republican 
Party,  Republican  Party, 
American  Party,  Whig  Party, 
Free-Soil  Party,  Liberty  Party, 
Labor  Reform  Party,  Liberal 
Republican  Party,  Greenback 
Party 

"  Pocket  Veto,"  Andrew  Jack- 
son's, 92 

Politics,  American,  influence  of 
foreign  affairs  on,  i,  2,  49,  50 

Polk,  James  K.,  elected  presi- 
dent, 107  ;  on  slavery,  117 


"  QUIDS,"  48,  49 
R 

RANDOLPH,  JOHN,  leader  of 
the  "Quids,"  48,  49;  his  at- 
tacks on  Jefferson,  49;  his 
duel  with  Clay,  77,  78 


2O4 


INDEX 


Republicans,  Jeffersonian.    See 
Democratic- Republican  Party 
Republicans,  Liberal,  189,  190 
Republicans,  National,   83,  97, 

174 

Republican  Party,  origin  of, 
142,  146 ;  platform  of,  147, 
155,  156,  160,  185  et  seq.  ;  ma- 
jority in  Congress,  156,  157 ; 
financial  measures  adopted 
by,  158  ;  position  of,  as  re- 
gards the  status  of  the  States, 
163 ;  changes  in,  since  the 
Civil  War,  165-171 

Rush,  Richard,  candidate  for 
vice-president,  83,  85 


SCOTT,  DRED,  Decision,  the, 
148,  152 

Scott,  General  Winfield,  candi- 
date for  presidency,  140 

Seward,  William  H.,  94;  en- 
deavors to  induce  Adams  to 
re-enter  politics,  95,  128  ;  said 
to  have  named  the  Republi- 
can Party,  146 

Seymour,  Horatio,  candidate 
for  president,  160 

Slavery,  Democratic  Party  iden- 
tified with  support  of,  106  ;  the 
all-absorbing  question,  118 ; 
debates  in  Congress  on,  118, 
119  ;  the  Dred  Scott  Decision, 
148,  151 ;  the  struggle  in  Kan- 
sas on,  148-152 ;  eliminated 
from  national  politics,  157 ; 
Democratic  declaration  on,  in 
1840,  179 

Spoils  system,  beginning  of,  87, 
177 

Squatter  Sovereignty,  130 

Stevens,  Thaddeus,  quoted, 
140 

T 

TARIFF,  the  first  bill,  6,  9 ;  the 
compromise  tariff  of  1833,  96, 


97  ;  of  1842,  107,  108  ;  Demo- 
cratic  and  Republican   posi- 
tion  toward,    after   the   Civil 
War,    166-170;    platforms   of 
various  parties  on.  189  et  seq. 
Taylor,  General  Zachary,  nomi- 
nated  for    president,  123  ;    a 
slave-holder,    127 ;    his   cam- 
paign for  presidency,  127,  128 
"  Texas  Case,''  the,  163 
Texas  question,  the,  106-108 
"  Tippecanoe   and  Tyler  too," 

178 

Tories,  98 

Tory,  name  loses  significance,  2 

Tyler,  John,  becomes  president, 

103  ;   a  strict   constructionist, 

105  ;  his  policy,  105,  106,  158 


VAN  BUREN,  MARTIN,  and  the 
spoils  system,  87,  88  ;  votes 
received  in  1837,  98  ;  his  initia- 
tive policy,  ico ;  votes  re- 
ceived in  1840,  103 ;  nomi- 
nated by  the  Barnburners, 
123,  124,  177 

Virginia  and  Kentucky  Resolu- 
tions, the,  29,  30,  80 


W 

WAR  of  1812,  57,  58  ;  Mexican, 

in  ;  Civil,  156,  157 
Washington,   George,  William 

Mac-lay's  words  concerning,  5, 

11,  45  ;   personal  attacks  on, 

12,  20,  21  ;  chosen  for  presi- 
dential candidate,  13.  14  ;  his 
proclamation     of    neutrality, 
18  ;  his  visits  to  Congress,  45, 

47 
Webb.   James  Watson,  names 

the  Whig  Party,  97 
Webster,  Daniel,  75  ;  his  change 

of  front,  97 ;   votes  received, 

99  ;  his  words  in  the  Massa- 


INDEX  205 


chusetts  Convention  of  1848,        victory,     128  ;     endorse     the 

119,   120 ;    his   words   on   the        Fugitive     Slave     Law,     140 ; 

nomination  of  Zachary  Tay-        death  of,  142,  158  ;   platform 

lor,  124,  128  ;  his  surrender  to        in  1840  and  later,  178  et  seq. 

slavery,  136,  137  Whiskey  Rebellion,  the,  19 

Weed,  Thurlow,  94  White,  Hugh  L.,99 

Whig,  name  loses  significance,    Whittier,    John    G.,    his    lyric 

2  "  Ichabod,"  139 

Whig  Party,   the,  birth  of,  78  ;    Wilmot  Proviso,  the,  134 

named,    97  ;    success    of,    in    Wilson,  Henry,  165 

1837,    103  ;    in    campaign    of    Wirt,    William,   candidate    for 

1840,     104  ;      and     President        president,  95 

Tyler,  105,  106  ;  its  defeat  in 

1844,    107,     112  ;     desertions  j  X 

from,    119  ;    Conscience   and  ; 

Cotton  Whigs,   120  ;   its  last '  X.  Y.  Z.  letters,  the,  25,  26 


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